


Cowboy Jones: Celestial Bodies

by AdamantEve



Series: Cowboy Jones [7]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Inspired by Firefly, Lesbian Relationships, Mentions of Slavery, Mentions of alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Space Cowboy, aro-ace Jellybean, bounty hunter jughead, gay relationships, inspired by cowboy bebop, mechanic betty, mentions of drug addiction, mentions of mental abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2020-06-23 13:26:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19702285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantEve/pseuds/AdamantEve
Summary: Betty and Jughead Jones face their most interesting challenge yet--being pregnant in space while bounty hunting.





	1. The First

**Author's Note:**

> So much more domestic and fluffier than I expected, but hey.

Betty figured that being in the first trimester of her pregnancy during her honeymoon had its advantages. For one, honeymoons like theirs--on the beaches of planet Faye, where everything they would ever need was provided by resort staff and everything she wanted to know was openly shared by friendly islanders--meant she hardly had to do anything but relax, which was a welcome relief considering she seemed endlessly and inexplicably exhausted. Secondly, the fresh air and perfect temperatures helped immensely with staving off her bouts of nausea—some of the time. 

Unfortunately, this also meant that enjoying the many benefits of this perfect island retreat was a struggle, if not outright forbidden--no scuba diving, no hand gliding, no parasailing, and no alcohol. The delicious, plentiful food most often didn’t agree with her, and the late night luaus had her beat way too early in the night. 

There were a couple of days where these negative thoughts brought her down, and with her hormones permeating her body, there had been weeping, much to her dismay and mortification. 

Well into week 2 of their vacation, she was in the throes of morning sickness, yet again.

After throwing up her breakfast in the toilet and staring at her miserable visage in the bathroom mirror, coupled with an unfamiliar bloated feeling in her belly and her aching breasts, Betty sat on the toilet cover in her two-piece swimsuit and began to cry for a bunch of reasons that never particularly bothered her to this kind of emotional state, until now.

As much as she knew that she was being much too hard on herself, she couldn’t help but also feel terrible at the fact that she and Jughead hadn’t had as much sex as she thought they would. Not since the first couple of nights, and while Jughead never pressured her at all, her hormones fed her insecurities.

She had tried, for her own sanity, to keep her sobs to herself, but the bathroom doors weren’t soundproof and Jughead had been hyper attentive since her morning sickness started a couple of weeks ago. 

“Betty?” His voice was soft through the door. “Are you okay?”

She swallowed her sobs and swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m fine!” She turned on the sink faucet and let the sound of running water cover for her emotional noise. “I’m, uh, just brushing my teeth!”

There was a pause. “Alright, but if you need anything…”

She felt worse, shutting him out, and she had to remind herself that he just wanted to help. 

She did brush her teeth to wash out the taste of vomit from her mouth and cracked open the bathroom door. Jughead looked up from his seat on their bed, his concern clear in the wrinkling of his brow. 

Her eyes began to fill again. “I feel like shit and it’s our honeymoon and I’m a crap wife.”

The two strides he took between the bed and the bathroom door to enfold her in his arms already had her feeling better.

“You are not a crap wife,” he muttered into her hair. “You are an amazing woman who just happens to be married to me and you’re making a human being, which can kick the crap out of anyone, I’m told.”

She closed her eyes, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest against her cheek. His heartbeat was steady and soothing. “I am ruining our honeymoon.”

The dramatics, she assumed, were part of the raging hormones.

“Not at all.” His hand trailed warmth up her spine. “I get to be with you and take care of you. And we’ve been getting a shit ton of sleep anywhere we feel like it. Not to mention everyday Eat-All-You-Can buffets. I am living the life I deserve.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his happiness. His feelings of appreciation for what they had now was a refreshing turn from his more cynical asides in the past, and she couldn’t blame him. They were on this island paradise together, where his only care was to make her comfortable, hydrated, and when she felt like it, desired. 

“Ready to head out or would you like to stay in?” he asked, pushing some wayward strand of hair from off her cheek.

She appreciated how he could just hole back up in their hotel room with her if she said so. She preferred to be out today, however, so she told him she wanted fresh air and sunshine, so he nodded, grabbed the huge bottle of water from their mini refrigerator, and unsealed it for her. 

Hydration was key. 

She kissed him appreciatively and took the bottle as they walked out of their hotel room.

***************

“A grape.”

The cool breeze touched her heated skin and soothed her as they swung lazily on the fancy beach hammock. She was half-draped on Jughead, napping lightly as he read from his tablet. 

The hammock itself offered shade, but the ocean water reflected sunlight everywhere and her dark glasses were essential to catching a nip. The downside was it hampered her view of his tablet screen. 

She nudged her glasses above her eyes, squinting at the glare of the sun. “What?”

“Our bug is the size of a grape. A fraction of an ounce and 1 inch tall. So small but causing so much trouble for mom.”

Sometimes she wondered if Jughead was even real. He was so precious and soft, and yet he had a gun in his suitcase and a switchblade in his little island satchel. 

“It’s an app,” he explained, in earnest. Truly as if she couldn’t possibly already know this. “It’s amazing. It gives you a weekly update. I tells you what to expect from your body, from the doctor, from the baby—you can even add in features like blood glucose tracking if, space forbid, you develop gestational diabetes. But that doesn’t run in your family, does it? You’re less likely to get it.”

She slid up his body and kissed him. To hell with PDA. It was likely, anyway, that there was no one for miles around. This resort had thousands of islands surrounding it, so one of the hotel’s many offerings included a private island for a day for all of its guests.

They were given supplies for food and drink in a cooler, and their set up of hammock and lounge chairs were ready when the hotel staff dropped them off their private island that morning.

A few meters behind them, they had a “hut”, which was actually made of bamboo and straw. There was a futon and bedding if you needed an indoor nap, and outside, in the shaded veranda, were lounging furniture.

When they were ready to be picked up, they just needed to tell their Cedonia, assigned as their personal coordinator, to call for their boat. It was quietly roosting in its mount, unobtrusive and waiting to be summoned.

It was just shortly before lunch and they weren’t going anywhere, more likely now that she was making out with her husband with wanton abandon.

Jughead’s tablet disappeared, probably having dropped to the sand beneath them, as her tongue swiped across his lips and her hand slipped into his board shorts.

He made no protest, his fingers sinking into her hair, and he deepened the kiss, moaning softly when she grasped his already hard cock and moved her grip over its length.

The warmth of his hand cupping her breast was soothing. He squeezed so very gently, knowing how sensitive they were right now. 

It was everything she could ask for.

And then it wasn’t.

The hammock rocked gently, but it was enough to turn her stomach. She groaned and pulled away. His confusion immediately transformed to understanding when she closed her eyes and said, “I need the swaying to stop.”

He skillfully swung his legs off the hammock and while it made the whole hammock swerve to one side, he managed to do it carefully. He sat at the edge, facing her and steadying the entire thing. 

She felt the warmth of his hand on her spine, stroking her soothingly until the nausea waned.

“I hate this,” she whispered. 

“Oh, baby,” he said in a gentle tone. “You’re well into your eighth week. You’ll start to feel better at twelve…”

She cracked one eye open to look at him, a chuckle rising from within. “How good is this app of yours that you know what to expect week to week?”

“I got the gold premium account,” he said without batting an eyelash or changing his tone in the least.

“Well, then you do realize that 12 weeks means four more weeks of _this.”_

He nodded. “And I recognize that’s an agonizingly long time, but I’ll do what you need me to do to help, okay?”

She knew, without a doubt, that he meant what he said, and she appreciated how he took care of her, especially the last couple of weeks. As much as she valued her independence, she recognized that his need to protect was just going to intensify now that she was expecting. 

Sometimes, she thought about the politics of it all, but most times, she just realized—this is _them._ This is _Jughead._ He protected the people he loved. They were going to have a baby and she was getting her ass kicked because of it. He knew it. She knew it. He was going to respond accordingly, which meant Primal Protection Protocol.

They can work out the scope of that when she felt better and stronger. In the meantime, she would let him take care of her. 

“I’d like to walk in the sand, please,” she said. “Physical activity helps with nausea, you know.”

He eyed her suspiciously, even as he helped her stand upright on the sand. She could see his wheels turning, how he was _probably_ racking his brain for natural remedies that his supposed gold account app was likely supplying him with. 

“I had the resort stock some ginger and peppermint tea in the cabin,” he said. “Some fresh lemons, too.”

She wondered sometimes if she deserved being loved by someone like Jughead Jones. Sure, she had some shitty moments growing up—subjected to her parents’ control on various levels, seeking the approval of a psycho, living and sticking to a scripted life, once being in a relationship with a man who didn’t really know how to love anyone but himself, and finally being humiliated by the rejection of that man in the form of a video scandal—but even with all of that, her privilege had armed her with the tools she needed to rise above it, and then she made the lucky choice of hopping on the Whyte Wyrm, where she was able to shed the troubles of her life and realize how there was so much more. 

She felt fortunate. Her life could have been different. She shuddered at the thought that she could’ve missed having all this if she hadn’t discovered FP Jones. 

Her hormones were going crazy again, she realized, when she began to feel that tell-tale sting in her eyes. Her anxiety had been manageable so far, but her therapist was already giving her pointers on how to cope should it worsen, and their first face-to-face prenatal visit to the doctor was scheduled just right after their honeymoon, where they had to make big decisions regarding prenatal care vs. deep space living. She tried not to let it stress her, and she was mostly successful, but whenever the thought came up, her anxiety reared.

She had managed her anxiety with little to no meds in the past, which was a good thing, but with the pregnancy progressing, it could get hairy. 

Their hut had comfortable outdoor seating, and it would be good to put their feet up while she sipped something warm and soothing. “Ginger tea sounds good.”

He nodded, obviously pleased that he had provided for her comfort in some way. 

As she settled back on the cushioned lounge chair on their personal balcony, he fixed her tea, and when he handed her the mug, gently reminding her to let the liquid cool before partaking, he sat by her and massaged her legs and feet.

She sighed, smiling at him with the cup of tea warming her hands. “Do you plan to do this my whole pregnancy? Because a girl can get used to this.”

The glint of adoration in his eyes was the only response she needed to understand that Jughead Jones would do anything for her--not that she didn’t already know that, but she supposed it hadn’t been so true until now that _they_ were pregnant. 

They both felt relaxed and it occurred to her that this was perhaps a good time to talk about difficult subjects. They were also stuck in an island where neither of them had anywhere to run to. They were each other’s captives. “Jug, are you going to let me go with you on jobs while I’m pregnant?” she asked. “ I mean, when I start to feel better.”

His hands never stopped making gentle circles against her skin, but he didn’t answer quite so quickly. “Baby, even with a bullet proof vest…”

She took a deep breath to summon her resolve, nodding. “I know. I know that, and we’ll get to that part, but you know that no matter what, I’ll be careful. You know I can handle myself.”

He was quiet, and while he was nodding, she could see that his mind was already a hundred miles away, thinking up alternative options. 

She knew he would get this way, and she wasn’t mad. She understood his concerns. When she had taken a bullet to her kevlar, it felt like getting punched in the ribs. Her bruise had been massive, lasting for days. The injury hadn’t debilitated her, but her side had felt tender for about 48 hours. 

If she took a hit like that, in the wrong place, while pregnant, she could lose the baby. 

“Jug, I’m not going to let anything happen to the little bug. I promise that I’ll opt out of the high-risk jobs, myself, but it’s not unreasonable for me to want to be present for the low-risk ones—you know, the supply pickups, the deadbeats and conmen, the fivers.” The fivers were the minimum sentence criminals, who usually got 3-5 years in prison for their petty crimes. Sometimes, sexual offenders were thrown in that mix, too, because the system was _still_ relatively lenient to that particular group of filth. They took small jobs like this, too, because even these criminals needed to be caught and put away.

He came back to her then, his eyes shining for the briefest moment. “I know that, Betts. I know, and I trust you, I swear. I just--I _need_ so desperately to protect you both.”

She stilled his hands. “I get it, alright. I do. So we’ll take it one job at a time. I swear to you I will be smart about every single one. We’ll be more strategic, get more creative.”

They’d been a good team and they were more effective at bounty hunting since she started joining their jobs. If she began to sit out the jobs, they’d have to go back to the lesser bounties, which meant less money. As it was--past her first trimester--she only had a 4 to 5 month window to be their third gun at bounties, after that, she _had_ to sit jobs out, because she would be less able to meet the physical requirements of bounty hunting, because the baby was going to put on weight. 

He sighed, but he didn’t seem upset, smiling softly even as she recognized the worry etched on his face. “It’s going to be hard, but I’ll try my best. Like you said, we’ll take it one job at a time.”

She appreciated his candor, and only time would tell. “What was it like for women at the ESDC?”

He paused and she could tell he was really thinking about his response. When the massage of his fingers on her legs resumed, the tension on his own shoulders from their discussion seemed to thaw slightly. “At the ESDC, women who were expecting weren’t prevented from serving. Women could serve for as long as they deemed themselves able, but it was the ESDC’s duty to consider her condition when serving, whether or not they keep them in combat. The main goal is to keep women in the ESDC—make them want to keep serving even after giving birth, to show that service members can both serve and have a family. It’s illegal to discharge an active member for being pregnant.”

It surprised her that in spite of ESDC’s more conservative tendencies that they had managed to have a more open policy about this matter, until she realized that keeping their women in combat in spite of their condition worked more in the ESDC’s favor than anything else. Still, she recognized that it was still a pretty progressive stance to take and she appreciated Jughead for telling her this, even if it was the sort of information she could’ve found out for herself. “That’s very forward thinking of them.”

He nodded, but there was a sheepish lilt to his expression. “It is, but many commanding officers do immediately keep expectant soldiers out of action, and because of this, a lot of women kept their pregnancies a secret--until they couldn’t. It was easier for pilots--not as easy for infantry, but the accounts were varied. A lot of infantry women whose commanding officers kept them off the field did successfully bring their pregnancies to full term and delivered as expected. There were those who miscarried, but only a small percentage was because of injuries sustained in active duty. Then there’s the legendary Arjana Nnandi, who stayed fighting on the field until she was 30 weeks in. She never disclosed her pregnancy, and she only got found out because she sustained a foot injury and the standard checks revealed that she was pregnant. If her foot hadn’t been broken, she would’ve gone back on the field. While in recovery, she delivered, took her full year of maternity, and jumped back in when her leave was done. She’s still serving.”

While Nnandi’s account was inspiring, Betty did recognize that each woman had their own story to tell. She was nothing like Nnandi, a formidable soldier who could probably kick ass with one hand tied to her back--something Betty had no aspirations of becoming. It was never a one-size fits all situation and she was going to embrace that truth. 

Moreover, she wanted this pregnancy to be something that brought her and Jughead closer, rather than be a wedge in their marriage. 

“We’ll see how we can work things out while I’m able,” she said, gently. “I promise to keep an open mind.”

He blew a breath through his lips. “Me, too.”

It was all she could ask. “And when I can’t anymore, what are we going to do for all those months I can’t help out?” 

It was inevitable that she would have to take several months off bounty hunting and perhaps even engineering. The ship should be fine, in general, but their main source of income can’t take too much of a hit. 

They both knew that she was wealthy, which meant _they_ were wealthy, and that _they_ had holdings and assets, but neither of them were the type to sit back and rely on passive income like that, and the Whyte Wyrm—it was their life. They needed to earn an income for it because Jellybean and FP had to earn from it, too. 

Jughead didn’t hesitate to answer her question. “There are a couple of ways. It’s either we take the easier bounties—dad and I could handle those. It’s all we pretty much did before we had you to help. We’d all have to be on a tighter budget for a while and it’s not the worse thing, especially _if_ we manage to rent out the Parc Acre property.”

She gave a soft snort. The Parc Acre apartment in New York that her mother had so lavishly given them was both a gift and a burden. The only way they could manage the property taxes on the thing was to get it rented out. The good news was that it was an extremely marketable property, and with brokers and property managers already in Alice’s payroll for other property holdings, it was probably going to get rented out in the next week or so. Even with the cost of maintaining it, renting it out would get them a reasonable income. 

The hope had been to send that income straight to their savings, but if their Bounty income grew thin, and they had to dip into those savings, there might not be “savings” for a while, which was stressful, considering they were going to have a child.

“The other option—“ Jughead continued in a serious tone, “--is to take on alternative projects in between bounties.”

She frowned. “Alternative projects?”

He nodded, taking a moment to knead the back of her legs and ease some of the tension she didn’t know she had there. “The ESDC’s Vet Reassignment division contacted me, asking me if I’d be willing to take scheduled week-long jobs escorting refugee transports safely from warzones to planet outposts…”

Worry churned in her gut. She didn’t know what to say. She had all of these questions in her mind, like--was he ready to go back into that environment? How many times would he have to be away? Was this going to feel like the time he’d gone missing? She had known that he would take up the Vet Division’s call for volunteers at some point, but she didn’t think it would be so soon. She thought he would give it another year or so.

Her emotions were in a state of turmoil and it took everything she had not to let it take over, lest she burst into tears. “Jug… do you feel you’re ready?”

She didn’t want to overstep, but she loved him so much--had seen him work so hard to make himself better. If they weren’t expecting a child, would he even think about doing this so soon?

He pressed his lips together, but the corner of his mouth tilted to a half-grin. “Well, they knew my profile when they called me. They knew why I was discharged, and the VR division knows how to take care if its vets. They said that my job will be keeping me strictly in flight. I get in a ship, I fly—I’m not going to lie, it’s a fighter craft so skirmishes are possible, but I’m ready for that. And when my job’s done, I go home. Therapists are required to check in with me daily while on duty and the ESDC shoulders the cost of those sessions.”

It sounded ideal, but how much of that could the ESDC control? She sat up and threaded her fingers through his. “You’ve made amazing progress, Juggie. Are you sure this won’t derail it? What does your therapist say?”

“Betty, I will do _anything_ for our family.”

“Not if it sets you back on this. It’s not worth it.”

“My therapist will be watching me, and he’s looked at the data on the Vet Reassignment Division’s mental health ratings—sources from independent investigations. So far, he thinks the numbers are good, and he’s optimistic that the VR division will keep its promises to me. Dr. Flootsnoot is already putting together a program that will prepare me better for it. But you have to remember, Betty--I love to fly. I love using that expertise to help people, and if it allows me to take care of you and the bug, that makes it even better.”

She hated it that she could so easily be moved to tears these days. She frantically swiped her eyes with the back of her hand and predictably, Jughead gently reassured her it was all going to be okay. 

She could see the golden glow of the sun on his skin, could smell the tropical sunblock coming off his lithe and lined body. His white linen shirt hung open and his light khakis hung low on his waist. His ebony hair, much longer since his return from the camps, was still chic from his bachelor’s party haircut, and it wasn’t affected by the island humidity in the least. He looked like her island fantasy, and she realized she hadn’t exactly given that thought the attention it deserved because she was so hung up on her first-trimester woes. 

“I know it’s going to be okay,” she grumbled, sniffing. “I can’t control myself these days. What I really want to say is that I love you, and that whatever happens, we’ll always find a way. I should stop getting caught up on this pregnancy and the practicalities of it--enjoy the moment of you and me being in this island paradise. I’ve been a needy wench all week.”

He pushed some of her hair off her shoulder. His blue eyes swept her face with loving attention. “You haven’t. You’ve been exhausted, but you’re incredibly sweet and--God, you’re so beautiful, Betts. I feel so lucky.”

She was on him in moments and the stability of the lounge chair made for a much more conducive environment to straddle him and get both their clothes off without her feeling even the slightest bit nauseous. 

She imagined that the backdrop of a sunset as she rode him to oblivion must have been a sight to see. He didn’t hold back telling her that his view was breathtaking, her naked body outlined against the sight of lapping blue waves and the vast, cloudless blue-green sky, with its outline of the ringed moon Atlassia, and the irregularly shaped rock known as the space island, Pem.

******************

The day Jughead and Betty arrived back at the Wyrm, it was only FP, Jellybean, and Hotdog there to meet them.

Jughead had to admit that he almost expected that they would be surrounded by their wedding party, or at least Alice and Gladys would be hanging around with them. He supposed he was still high from the fanfare that was their wedding, and their honeymoon, though just the two of them, felt idyllic enough that some part of him kept thinking that the party wasn’t over. 

To come home to their actual life was almost surprising, but also a relief. Things settled down while they were gone enjoying the rest and relaxation offered by planet Faye. 

Hotdog’s loud bark heralded his great big body jumping into Jughead’s arms. The weight of him was significant, and his fur was everywhere, but his warmth and the jubilant way Hotdog panted was pure love. 

“Hey, boy. I missed you, too,” he said. 

Hotdog gave another woof while Betty laughed and scratched him behind the ears. He scrambled off Jughead to get back on the ground and immediately attempted to accost Betty. His paws were on her shoulders as he licked her face. 

She tumbled back slightly, and Jughead’s immediate urge to stop Hotdog reared with urgency. If Hotdog jumped Betty the same way he did Jughead, she could get hurt.

“Hotdog, down,” Jughead said in a clipped tone. 

“It’s fine, Juggie,” Betty said, grinning and continuing to scratch behind Hotdog’s ears. “He just missed me.”

“Down, boy,” FP said, pulling gently at Hotdog’s collar to get him off Betty. 

“Yeah, down, boy,” Jellybean said, eyebrow raised. “We might crush itty-bitty Betty with our massive paws.”

FP frowned. “JB.”

She rolled her eyes and gave Betty her usual non-hug, where she had her arms around Betty’s shoulders and the only actual skin that was touching were Jellybeans hands. “Hi, my sister from One-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named mister. I’m glad you’re back.” 

Betty chuckled and squeezed Jellybean’s shoulder, her gaze full of affection. 

Really, Jellybean was the only person in the universe who can joke about that shit and Betty wouldn’t get mad.

Jellybean looked at Jughead. “I’m happy to see you, too, actual sibling unit. Listen, do I have to call you captain now? Can I _not?_ When the baby’s born, do I have to call you Daddy Juggie, so as not to confuse the Thing Child with the other parental unit on the ship?”

He shot Jellybean a withering glare as he enfolded FP in his arms. “Shut up before I hug you.”

FP’s tight squeeze was punctuated by a slap to the back of his shoulder. “Well, the tike’s gonna call me pappy, anyway, so there won’t be any confusion.” He transferred his hug to Betty. “How you feelin’, Betts? Hope the sunshine and clean air helped with the morning sickness and all.”

She was smiling, even as she exchanged knowing looks with Jughead. “A little. Jughead was the one who really helped. He took good care of me and put up with my moods.”

She always talked like she was impossible to deal with, when Jughead thought she had been the complete opposite of impossible. She had been nothing but sweet, possibly because she was worn down by the physical exertion of just being pregnant and in the first trimester. Her usual fire was set at low, and that was okay, too. If anyone expected her to be 100%, that was just being unreasonable, and probably the only person who was expecting that of her was herself.

And possibly Alice, so he was glad she was nowhere in sight. 

“Her ‘moods’ weren’t moods at all,” Jughead explained, draping an arm over her shoulders. “Faye was exactly what we both needed.” 

Betty wrapped her arm around his waist, leaning against him. She was probably already tired from their long commute. 

“Well, you get one more day before I start expecting you to act like the captain of this ship,” FP said, his toothy grin assuring that he would make good on that declaration. “I’ve got dinner ready at the galley, but let me give you both a tour of what we’ve done with the cabins the last couple of weeks. It’s all done, finished and furnished.”

“Can’t wait,” Jughead grumbled with what he realized was deeply held cynicism. Before they left the ship, walls had been knocked down to widen the square footage. The room next door had been commandeered for it, which was just as well. The Wyrm had been meant for a medium-sized crew—a captain, first mate, the pilot, engineer, surgeon, head chef, gunner, and perhaps one or 2 shipswains. There were enough cabins for a crew like that, even if it meant the gunner and shipswains had to share, and to have opened up a wall to make the captain’s room bigger still meant they had several cabins to spare, one of which had been cleared for what FP and Gladys declared should be the baby room. 

The floor plans had looked promising, and Jughead and Betty were optimistic that the contractors his parents hired would be able to accomplish the job competently, but he was skeptical about the timeline of two weeks. He knew Gladys had a hand in all this redecorating, too. He didn’t want to think about how that could’ve gone down. 

He tossed Jellybean a look. 

She snorted, understanding his look completely. “They weren’t so bad, honestly. It took them an entire week to actually start fighting.”

“Hey,” FP interjected, rather mildly, which indicated to Jughead that the didn’t have much of a leg to protest. 

“I had to call in Alice,” Jellybean continued. “Apparently, they both listen to her.”

Betty grumbled what suspiciously sounded like, “Ugh, mom.”

Jellybean wasn’t finished. “And _then,_ mom had to fight Alice because she brought in a hoity-toity interior designer who was trying to turn everything pink.”

“I’m sorry, JB,” Betty said in a woeful tone.

“Don’t be. It was very everything I wanted and more.”

FP’s groan of discontent punctuated that statement. “For JB, maybe. Your mothers were both impossible. You should be thankful you were away to miss it, but we miraculously made compromises and got the job done, and I think you’ll be pleased with the results, because you know what Alice does when she doesn’t get her way--”

“She throws money at it,” Betty grumbled. 

“Basically.”

The captain’s chamber had always been the biggest cabin on the ship, but it was still a relatively small room by itself. Jughead had expected that even with the room upgrade and expansion, they would still have to put up with a bit of cramping, but the room they walked into was nothing like the blueprint they left behind. 

It wasn’t just that the first mate’s room had been used to widen the space. The entire set up was definitely updated, with sleek panels along its walls and its floor carpeted to keep the cold metal from freezing the room. The bed had gotten slightly expanded, and to make up for the space that it took, panels were installed overhead for storage. The furniture had gotten updated, and lots of new hideaway cabinets were installed into the walls that were once just ship wiring and empty panels, but the biggest change was that the widest wall had been turned into a window, where there was a floor to ceiling view of space. 

“You can frost the windows, of course,” FP said, demonstrating how to work the window controls. The view blinked on and off as he pressed and unpressed the touch screen controls. “But it’s a view just like your loft, Betty. You even have a window seat--perfectly cushioned and everything, for when you’re too preg--”

Jughead shot his father a glare.

“Whenever you feel like it,” FP amended, hastily. “What do you think?”

Fortunately, Betty seemed too amazed to notice FP’s almost faux pas. She walked around the room, pulling out panels and running her fingers along the new furniture. FP had lived in this room with the barest of essentials, but with him giving them the space, it was better furnished with a dressing table, a work desk, and bedside tables with night lamps. 

She pressed the bed cushion, which looked new. Its comfortable, inviting softness was covered with a bedspread with a design so exactingly Alice-tempered-by-Gladys. There was even a picture on the wall of the Wyrm against the beautiful red horizon of the planet Djin. 

She went to the window seat and looked out into space--her favorite view. “It’s perfect.”

FP smiled, proudly, nudging Jughead’s shoulder with the back of his hand. 

Jughead couldn’t help but grin at his father's sense of accomplishment. This was a significant thing for his father and everyone knew it.

Betty leaned back against the window seat wall and Jughead knew she was taking every moment she could to rest. She was still in a constant state of fatigue, and she struggled with the idea that her body wasn’t being as cooperative as it used to be. She said she’d never felt such low energy in her life. She had always been light in her step and driven to go. Part of it had to do with her upbringing--the healthy food, exercise, and the constant need to excel. She was strong and fierce, and the forces that kept her down in the past were always external. She’d never had to contend with listlessness and exhaustion being caused by something from within. 

He had to remind her that she just needed to rest. To let her body do the work. Eating, drinking, and sleeping were her directives. Light exercise was recommended but not required. And in a few weeks, she would feel much better. 

Jughead noticed the empty square footage by the window, apparent because everything else about the room was so space-efficient. “Were you planning on putting something here?”

“Well, no. Not us, but you might want to put something there, like a crib, if you don’t feel like using the baby room for a while.”

The visual hit him harder than he could’ve anticipated. He stood rooted to his spot, absolutely taken with the notion of having the baby within close reach, of being able to turn over on his bed so he could crack an eye open and be reassured that the littlest person on the ship was okay, and that if the baby ever needed anything, mom and dad would be _right there_ to take care of baby.

Hotdog gave a whine and padded over to Betty, placing his face and paw on her lap. He was probably sensing her exhaustion, and she petted him appreciatively. 

“I’d like to have the baby nearby most of the time,” she said. “But the baby room--”

“It’s next door and we haven’t decorated it at all,” FP said, quickly. 

Jellybean plopped on the bed. “Ooh, Alice wanted to decorate that space so bad, but dad grew a pair and told her to shove off and let the two of you do the decorating. The walls and floor were updated too, though. It’s got panelling and shelves. It’s got the scenic window, too, but it’s bare. It’s your canvas.”

Jughead had to appreciate how his father put his life on the line, standing between Alice and her need for control. 

FP looked irritated. “Hey, I didn’t need to grow a pair. I always had them.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Who the hell is that?”

Jellybean blithely ignored his question. “Mom backed him up, of course, which helped.”

In spite of her exhaustion, Betty’s wide grin lit up the room. “Everything looks amazing FP, JB. I love it. You did such a great job, and I’m sure Gladys and mom worked with love in their hearts and it shows.” She winked. 

JB sputtered with laughter. 

“Remind me to thank them, too, Juggie.”

“We’ll do it together,” Jughead assured her. “Dad, imp, this is way more than Betty and I could’ve asked for. Seriously, thank you.”

“Anytime, son.”

Jellybean lay back on the bed with her hands behind her head. “Thank me later. Hotdog and I are planning to hang out here all the time when Baby Bug arrives. I intend to make this infant unit my minion and you know what the collective says--you can’t indoctrinate them too soon. Brainwashing will commence immediately.”

Jughead was 98% sure she was kidding. 

Betty chuckled. “I’m sure we’ll appreciate having Auntie JB at hand at all times.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Jughead spat out, unbidden. 

Betty laughed, FP rolled his eyes, and Jughead glared at JB. 

Her only response was what Jughead construed to be an Evil Grin.

*******************

Betty felt fortunate that being back at work meant she would get out of bed, get dressed in comfortable clothing, get a fruity tea to sip, then be at the engine room. She didn’t have to apply makeup, she didn’t have to think about what kind of impression her outfit was making, and she didn’t need to commute to some fancy office and sit at a desk all day. 

She didn’t have to smile and be pleasant to anyone, either, which was particularly appreciated in her present state. She felt calm, perhaps even well-rested. The new bed she and Jughead were sharing in their brand new bedroom was incredibly comfortable. They also had more space than they were used to having on the ship. How they used to fit in a twin, she didn’t know, but their present queen was a luxury on the Wyrm beyond her imaginings. 

This morning, she actually rolled over and didn’t fall. 

The bedspace was also empty. She vaguely remembered getting kissed on the lips while she was half asleep. That was Jughead, no doubt, getting up early to see to his duties as captain of the ship. 

He would still be piloting the ship at the moment, but eventually, they would have to get a pilot to fill his spot, which she could tell he was delaying, because he loved flying the Wyrm. And they were having a baby, so their finances were going to get tight. 

She ran her checks on the engine as she sipped her tea, making adjustments or repairs, where necessary. It took a while, since the Wyrm hadn’t gotten proper maintenance in two weeks. 

When she was satisfied with the state of the engine room, she went to ship bay where she ran diagnostics on all their crafts. 

With all her checks completed, she catalogued their inventory. 

They needed supplies. Ship parts, engine fluids, microchips, and all sorts of hardware. She made her list and sent a meeting invite to the captain, just like how she would do it with FP. The invite would simply say, “Engineering: Inventory”.

Jughead messaged her immediately. **_You don’t have to put a meeting on my calendar. I didn’t even know we had meeting calendars around here._ **

It made her giggle. She realized now that there were a lot of things that were exclusively hers and FPs, like this meeting calendar, their bi-weekly updates, reporting and documenting--FP hadn’t complained about any of it, and he said he actually liked it. He said it made him feel like stuff was actually getting done on the ship. 

**_Well,_** she typed. **_You’re the captain now, so you get to deal with the stuff FP used to deal with._**

**_Okay, but it’s not like I’ve got tons of meetings lined up. You can just walk into the bridge and tell me. You’re--like, my wife, you know._ **

She found his this outlook highly amusing. **_Didn’t you notice that Coopers make appointments? Just because we’re married, it doesn’t mean I stop being the person my mother bred me to be._ **

She was teasing, but she could tell she had frazzled him a little. The pulsating dots went on for a bit before a reply actually came back to her. Her communicator began to beep, and stifling her laughter, she activated it. 

“Babe, I tell you this with love,” he began, clearly uncomfortable. “Can we not do that? I mean, you can keep doing that with Alice and your siblings, but can we not make that a habit in our family? I think it might break my heart if you or the bug have to pencil yourselves into this proverbial calendar that I don’t keep.”

She was both touched and tickled by their wildly differing philosophies. The Coopers considered appointments as a genuine gesture of respect--as in, “I respect your time, therefore, I will let you know in a perfectly efficient way when I need to talk to you,” while Jughead seemed to perceive it as a wall that shouldn’t have to exist between family members. 

She got it. The only reason she had it with FP was because he _was_ her boss and FP acknowledged it, then it became a pleasant routine that she and FP were loathed about changing. She might have expected Jughead to act this way, which was probably why she did it in the first place. She wanted to see his reaction and so far, he didn’t disappoint.

She couldn’t promise ever dropping the habit of appointments, in general, because the truth was that having a set place and time soothed her, but she really did love the visual of them, the Joneses, being a family on this ship, completely accessible to one another at any time. She loved thinking that she was truly one of them in every sense of the word.

She bit her lip to temper her grin. “You’re precious, you know that?” 

“Now, Betty—“ He looked so serious. “—sweetie—“ She stifled a laugh. “—I mean it. With the calendars.”

“I know.” She was ready for the killing blow. It was too easy. “We have an appointment with the OB-GYN in a couple of hours, in case you left _that_ out of your calendar.”

She could see his eye twitching and she knew he was mildly offended. “I’ll have you know that it’s in my 40 Weeks: Space Edition app, which is upgraded to gold level.”

She grinned, cocking her gaze, and he realized he was caught.

“That’s different!”

“Totally! And don’t forget to accept my meeting invite to discuss our inventory.”

He made a sound like a blended growl and sigh. “Just come on over—“

She pretended to pout. “I still need to calibrate the warp core and fuel lines in the engine room.”

“Oh, my God, fine. Half an hour.”

She heard the soft ding of her calendar, alerting her that he had accepted the invite. 

“But if you’re done sooner, just come to the bridge, baby.” He frowned at someone over his shoulder. “It’s not funny, dad!”

The screen blinked off and Betty laughed a full minute before she went back to work.

*****************

Their meeting with the doctor was going to be on a specialized medical spaceship. 

Dr. Grace Takyi was one of many mobile doctors who served at roving medical facilities in space. They tended to stay around the third quadrant, but they did go as far as the fourth for their patients when necessary.

Super ships like the Raphael carried with it a handful of doctors and nurses who served a number of species across the galaxy who happened to be transient in deep space. They stayed within a given system in space but could fly closer to where their patients were located so patients can be brought in for examination.

Certain visits that didn’t require a face-to-face can almost always be accomplished remotely, but it was supplemented with the latest in remote-visit technology. 

Dr. Takyi smiled as she met them at the Raphael’s ship bay. She was young in her late 30s, dressed in a comfortable space suit, but with standard medical tags on them. She had served in the ESDC medical unit at the start of her career and claimed that her service through space has spoiled her to the wonders of the newest frontier. She didn’t want to miss out so she kept flying. She had most of her soft, curly hair tied back in a ponytail, but it fanned her dark brown face like a halo. She could very well be channelling her ship’s angelic name. 

“Welcome to the Raphael, Betty. Jughead.” She extended her hand to shake theirs. 

Betty noted how assuring her grip was. Her aura was extremely comforting.

“Right this way.” Dr. Takyi walked ahead of them.

As they fell into step, she slipped her hand in Jughead’s. His fingers automatically twined with hers, and they smiled briefly at one another. Betty could feel the quiet buzz of excitement rippling through her chest. 

This was one of the few in-clinic visits they would have, and today was their first ultrasound. She could hardly wait and she knew Jughead felt the same.

They were brought into a dimly lit room where Betty settled onto a cushioned examination table. The stirrups along its sides were unsettling, but Dr. Tayki thankfully put them away.

Perhaps seeing the wary look in her eyes, Dr. Takyi cast her a small smile. “We won’t be needing these right now. Just sit back and relax. You’re welcome to take that companion chair, Jughead. It is absolutely for you.”

Jughead took the seat without a word, threading their hands together once again. However clean and slick the room was, Betty could tell that the softly beeping, but unfamiliar equipment, was slightly unsettling. It was the same feeling of walking into a stranger’s ship, where you had no control over where it could take you. She hoped it wasn’t triggering him.

“You okay?” She kept her voice low as Dr. Takyi worked quietly, setting up equipment just a few steps away. 

He seemed surprised by her question. “I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine. I’m excited, actually. But you seem a little wary.”

He gave the room another cursory scan. “Just never done this before, that’s all.” He punctuated it with a smirk.

“First time is always nerve wracking,” said Dr. Takyi. “I’ll explain everything as we go, I promise.” A Cedonia floated into view. “This unit will be monitoring your vital signs, Betty, and the technician will be conducting your ultrasound in a bit, but we three should talk before she gets here.” She brought up a tablet and quickly scanned its contents. “Thank you for answering the intake form ahead of time. Your profile is… fascinating, I have to admit. We’ll get to some of it later after the ultrasound, but first, let me start out with this—should you, Betty, choose to continue with this pregnancy, and Jughead, choose to stick around, let me be clear that you both are no longer in control of your lives.”

She blinked. Jughead blinked. 

_Well._

Dr. Takyi cocked a grin. “In case you hadn’t realized that. Best laid plans, and all. Babies are demanding little things, not just when they arrive but before they arrive. Prenatal care is an inherently restricting process if you follow its prescriptions, and some may argue that you’ll probably deliver fine without all of this high-tech gadgetry and our advanced medical recommendations, but since you both are here, I can only assume you believe in science and want to assure the health and well-being of the baby and its mother. Are my assumptions correct?”

“Yes,” Jughead replied before Betty could say anything. 

Betty tried not to giggle, more so when Jughead slunk back and tossed her an apologetic look. She gave his hand a squeeze. “We want everything to go smoothly and we want to do all we can to keep everyone healthy.”

The doctor nodded, her eyes bright and the corner of her lip taking on an upward tilt. “And I am here to do just that if you’ll let me. As your prenatal doctor, the ideal set up would be for me to see you every 4 weeks, then every 2 weeks, and eventually every week, but the transient nature of your job makes that impractical. If at some point, you become high risk, then decisions would have to be made, but if all is progressing as expected, I only really need to see you when I have to see you, like on your 2nd trimester antenatal ultrasound, a 3rd trimester ultrasound if necessary, the week of your delivery, and of course—actual delivery.”

Betty knew the more regular appointments were impossible given their lifestyle, and however much her mother and sister insisted that she should be earthbound while pregnant, it was never a speck of thought in her mind that she would agree. She wanted to be with Jughead through all this, and she knew that Jughead wanted to be with her.

“Be that as it may,” the doctor continued. “You’d still want the best prenatal care available to you, yes?”

Betty looked at Jughead and he nodded. 

“Yes,” she replied for them both. “If it’s possible without us having to leave the 4th Quad, that would be preferred. Our livelihood is there...”

“Fair. Your insurance entitles you to Deep Space-Specialized pre- and post-natal care, Betty. It’s an amazing system, and in a lot of respects, it offers more technology than earth-bound expecting mothers depend on. The only thing that’s a drag is that I must, by law, educate you about it. Then Betty has to sign a bunch of documents to protect us both.”

Dr. Takyi stood and rolled over a compact table, bringing it forward for Betty and Jughead to get a closer look. On the table was a slick white box the size of a large lunch box on its side. She unlatched the casing and lifted the lid. On the underside of the lid was a mounted syringe gun. In the box were 12 syringes in a row, with digital labels for each slot. Dr. Takyi lifted this layer of syringes to reveal another 12 syringes, and the third layer had 15. Each syringe was no bigger than the perfume sample size they still gave away in department stores. 

“It’s a medical monitoring system. There are 41 syringes total, one for each week of pregnancy,” Dr. Takyi explained. “You take one out of its casing and administer it. If you return the casing empty, the number on the slot adjusts to the date you put it back in. The rest of the labels will adjust to the day you’re expected to take the rest. It will adjust again at each syringe. You’re likely in your 9th week--we’ll make sure with your ultrasound--which means you will start with the 9th syringe if you take this option.”

Betty was a big fan of technology, but she was eager to learn the details of Deep Space-Specialized prenatal care. She’d read up on it—so had Jughead, but all options in their research had proven to show some difficulty in one way or another. They weren’t fussed. They were willing to make compromises. What Dr. Takyi was showing them now hadn’t been brought up in the literature they’d come across. 

“What’s in it?” Jughead asked. 

“Nanobots--a technology far more accessible and affordable out here in the far reaches of space. Each syringe has about 350 to 500 of them, all of them made of organic, biodegradable material, which has been fortified with prenatal supplements and vitamins. It hasn’t been in the market long, but we’ve been using it the last 3 years for transient patients--tested before that for 15 years on mammalian subjects, 5 years of which were on human beings, and while it was primarily designed for pregnant women, it’s useful for all types of patients with chronic conditions who have little to no immediate access to medical professionals. It’s had a 99% success rate. Side effects have been minimal--here’s the literature.” Dr. Takyi handed them a two-page document with easy-to-read content. “It has to be administered every week because the nanobots cannot sustain their functions for longer than a week. They will naturally dissolve and get broken down into nutrients for your body to use and dispose of as necessary, but while they function, they serve as an internal, microscopic medical team, monitoring everything that’s going on with your body and your baby.”

“Everything?” Betty’s voice was breathless. She was both fascinated and uneasy with the prospect of someone having full access to what was going on in her body. 

Dr. Takyi nodded. “Everything. And it is the one drawback to this system--the privacy risk is high. If I sign in as your doctor, I will be the only one outside of your immediate family who will be allowed legal access to your information. Each time I access your information, you will get an alert that I’ve checked, and I have 24 hours to file a report as to why I checked it. The nanobots are machine learners, too. They will issue both you and me alerts if there are any irregularities. Blue alerts are minor, like a spike in heartbeat rate, mild overheating, common dehydration, cramps. It’s a non-threatening alert and you may come to appreciate it when it reminds you that you have to drink some water or eat something. Yellow alerts are more concerning. If at any point a yellow alert is issued, get in contact with your doctor--maybe even emergency services, so that they’re prepared, because a yellow alert is specific to instances that may signal an oncoming red alert. A red alert is really serious. You should be getting medical assistance in the next 5 minutes at that point.”

Anxiety was beginning to build in the pit of Betty’s stomach. 

“It’s not a bad thing, baby,” Jughead told her in a soothing tone. 

She realized that her grip on his hand had tightened and she breathed to loosen her fingers. 

Dr. Takyi nodded. “The yellow alerts we’ve had for these systems have increased patients’ and doctors’ ability to avert red alerts by at least 50%, and that rate is only getting better as we improve on response times based on what we’re learning. This system should help assure you, not worry you. Additionally, one of the most popular things about this system is its dietary features. Not my favorite thing, but many pregnant women swear by it like a bible--they love it.”

“Dietary features?” Betty was wary of anything that had the word “diet” in it. 

Dr. Takyi did not look too thrilled about it, either. Her easy posture had reverted to a stiffening in her shoulders. “The medical community recommends that pregnant humans gain no more than 30 pounds during their pregnancy, but I think the community should be clearer about the fact that 30 pounds is more suited to a woman who is a certain height within a 120 pound weight tier. I think each woman is different--size, shape, and lifestyle. The nanobots can track your daily consumption in calories, carbs, vitamins, fats, and protein. Naturally, the bots can track your weight.”

“How much should I gain?” Betty asked before she could stop herself. She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. They were Alice’s words, not hers. 

Jughead didn’t say a word, but he did press a hand to her shoulder to give it a light squeeze. 

“Wait, don’t answer that!” Betty cried. 

Dr. Takyi paused to check her intake form again. “I won’t, then. Don’t get hung up on weight gain. The nanobots will recommend how much of the major nutrients your body needs to make your pregnancy a healthy one, based on your lifestyle. If you exercise a lot, the nanobots will tell you to eat more. But even then, don’t ever let yourself go hungry or feel deprived-- _eat_ when you need to. The nanobots are handy, but they aren’t your doctor. Any concerns you have, you must come to _me._ The accompanying app will only give you data, not a diagnosis.”

“What do you think of this system, Betty?” Jughead asked, his tone one of open curiosity. 

She appreciated the way he asked his question. He didn’t appear to lean one way or another. He wanted to know what _she_ thought. 

“I’ll leave you two to talk about it,” Dr. Takyi said. “I’ll tell the technician to give you a few minutes, and if you can’t decide on the system today, don’t worry about it. You can take the system with you. If you never use it, it’s fine. You can keep it, but if you do decide to use it, you can just pick it up and start administering it. Using the syringe gun requires no special training. It will feel like a pin prick if you do it on your arm. You’ll feel practically nothing if you do it around your waist area--just pinch a handful of skin and do it there. You’ll feel nothing if you get someone else to do it on your buttcheek.” She chuckled. “Always a fun visual. I’ll be outside if you have any questions.”

When the doctor left, Jughead prompted the question again with a raise of his eyebrow.

“I can hear JB raging at the invasion of privacy,” Betty grumbled. “She’ll be spouting off conspiracy theories like gangbusters.”

Jughead scoffed. “I’ll deal with JB. What do _you_ think of it?”

“I think it’s amazing, Jug. I want a doctor to be keeping watch over my health until I deliver. It’s not like they can invade my thoughts, and that is the only privacy I can’t part with. I want to use this system. It makes me feel reassured.”

The warmth of his palm was a balm against the chill on her cheeks. 

The ultrasound technician walked into the room, greeting them warmly. Her bright red hair was tied back in stubby ponytail brushing the back of her neck. “My name is Sarah and I will be your technician today. Ready for your ultrasound?” She spoke with an accent. British from the sound of it. 

“We are!” Betty replied.

“Good! Let me adjust this--” Sarah took out her own tablet and began to adjust the incline of Betty’s examination bed. The bed began to lay her flat on her back. Sarah glanced up briefly at Jughead. “And you are--?”

Clearly surprised by the question, he stammered in his response. “Jughead Jones…”

“He’s the dad,” Betty explained, amused by his confusion. 

His face reddened from the neck up. 

“Right. Good,” Sarah replied. “You never know, you know. I’ve got all sorts of companions walking in here and believe me when I say that the worse thing I can do is assume who they are. I’ve had one too many can of worms opened in this job and I’d rather do away with the dramatics. Now, are you comfy, dear? Do you need a pillow?”

“Nope, this is just right.” She flashed Jughead a smile and he returned it with one of his own.

Sarah asked her to roll back her shirt and lower the waist of her jeans. 

“I’ll need this whole area to work with.” Sarah made circles around Betty’s lower abdomen and Jughead helped push back her clothes. 

Sarah laid a pre-cut sheet of paper with a hole over Betty’s belly, tucking the edges beneath Betty’s clothing to presumably protect the fabric. “We still use this goop to lubricate the scanner. It’s a harmless gel but we don’t want to get your clothes wet. It’s uncomfortable. We warm the stuff so it shouldn’t be alarming at all.” She brought a monitor forward and she flicked it on. The screen remained dark and featureless, but it flickered momentarily when Sarah picked up the scanner and held it securely in her hand. With the other hand she squirted the so-called gel just beneath Betty’s belly button. 

It felt warm, and when Sarah pressed the scanner to Betty’s belly, she felt the scanner glide smoothly but firmly over her skin. 

The screen came to life, with a somewhat fuzzy but pinkish light. The resolution wasn’t clear--it wasn’t like watching her insides work, but there was no mistaking that the scanner was searching through a chamber inside her body. 

Sarah turned a dial and the sound of a heartbeat filled the room.

Betty gasped and she felt her eyes stinging with tears. “Juggie!”

His mouth was hanging open, and he was blinking so rapidly that she knew he was holding back his own emotions. 

The broad grin that spread across Sarah’s face was heartwarming. “Ah, it never gets old. First-time parents always give me the fuzzies.”

Betty caught Jughead’s eyes and they laughed through their tears. He wiped his eyes with the shirt fabric on his shoulder before taking the box of tissues within his reach and offering it to Betty. 

She couldn’t believe how the wave of emotions came so suddenly at such a simple sound. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard a heartbeat outside of herself, but it was like her very soul knew how special this one was. 

The scanner moved again, the pressure of it distinct against Betty’s body. The image on the monitor shifted, and Sarah focused on the movement. Finally, the image stopped, and there on the screen was the unmistakable outline of a fetus, with its bulging head, large eyes and tiny arms and legs. Its belly was connected to a chord, and it floated serenely in its protective womb, its heartbeat visible in its translucent chest. 

“There we are,” Sarah whispered. “A lovely 9 weeks, just like your chart estimated. All things in order, healthy and safe.”

Betty felt overwhelmed by emotion and she clung to Jughead who always seemed to ground her, but right now he was mesmerized by the screen, and she knew they were both riding this tide of feeling. His other hand came over their combined ones.

“It's the bug,” he said, a slight choke in his voice. 

She could watch him being like this all day. 

“I can send videos of this to your file,” said Sarah. “You can download it and watch it anytime, but you get pictures, too. I can give those to you after we’re done here.”

Sarah moved the wand around a bit more for different views, taking digital photographs and quick measurements for several minutes, and when she was done, she shut the monitor down and gave them towels to wipe the gel off Betty’s belly.

Jughead helped when he didn’t have to, but she let him, seeing how he was intensely focused on every spot of excess gel while the apple in his throat bobbed more than usual.

She knew what he was feeling and she knew he was still grappling with allowing others to see his vulnerability. She had a touch of that tough veneer herself, so she got it, but she felt so soft right now that she couldn’t help but embrace it.

Sarah excused herself from the room and when she was gone, Betty stilled Jughead’s hand. When he looked up, she cast him a smile.

“Are you alright?” 

He nodded, a tight lipped smile tilting his lip. “That was unexpectedly overwhelming.”

“I know.”

He cupped his hand over her belly and kissed her, their lips touching with tender pressure.

He didn’t say anything, but Betty didn’t need anything explained. 

Sarah came back with Dr. Takyi just as Betty was rolling the edges of her clothes back down.

“Everything seems to be progressing nicely,” Dr. Takyi said as Sarah fiddled with some controls on the ultrasound. “Have you both given the Remote Medical Monitoring system some thought or do you need more time?”

Betty looked at Jughead and he gave a silent nod. 

“We’ve decided,” Betty said. “We’ll do it. We think it’s a good idea.”

Dr. Takyi gave a nod, clapping her hands once before pulling up her tablet and typing on its screen. “Splendid. You’ll have to sign a bunch of legal material, but you don’t have to sign everything now. Just the first couple of documents—which are blessedly short and straightforward. The others you should read thoroughly before signing. You have 72 hours to change your mind. If after 72 hours you haven’t signed your papers, the assumption is that you will continue to use the system as prescribed with all default provisions applying. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Betty replied, resolving to go through everything.

There was a soft whirring sound and Sarah reached for something behind the monitor. “Pictures! One for mama and one for papa.”

Betty touched the image of their tiny bug. She could see the slight tremble in Jughead’s hand as he held the photo and stared at it with liquid eyes. 

This was far more emotional than either of them had anticipated.

They wrapped up their visit and gathered everything they needed—the remote monitoring system, reading materials, and 32 weeks worth of prenatal vitamins.

As they settled themselves back into the Chopper for the ride back to the Wyrm, Jughead leaned back on his seat and blew out a loud breath. 

“I gotta keep it together. We’re at week 9 and I’m completely falling apart.”

Betty knew that their lifestyle lent itself to a certain mindset of precaution, and perhaps Jughead’s subsequent trauma didn’t ease that mindset in him in the least. She understood that there were times they couldn’t put their guard down, but they didn’t fight hard against her father and the ESDC just for them get creative with possible dangers that may loom. They should be able to feel soft and vulnerable without scolding themselves for it.

She paused to choose her words. “You’re not falling apart. It’s just love, baby.”

He seemed momentarily taken aback, but the smile that followed and the easing of tension from his shoulders was heartening. 

Even she didn’t realize how true her words were until she uttered them. It’s just love. A new kind of love, at that. To be so moved by the image of the bug on a monitor was just unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life and one glance at Jughead told her they were riding this wave together. 

“I love you,” he said, soft surrender in his eyes as he reached over the console to take her hand. “I love you both.”

She kissed the back of his hand. “Let’s go home.”


	2. The Second

This felt like the edge of a precipice, standing before a chasm, where Betty could jump and make it to the other side, or she misses and plunges to her death.

Or maybe she was overdramatizing things.

She looked at her laptop--at its mundane keyboard and even more mundane applications, and realized that yes, she was overdramatizing. 

“You’re overthinking again, aren’t you?” Jellybean asked beside her. 

Betty swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head. “I’m just nervous, that’s all. It’s the first test. The first ever test.”

Jellybean arched her eyebrow, gaze flickering to probably catch Jughead’s eyes. 

Betty could feel his presence in the chair behind her and she looked over her shoulder at him, waiting for his response. 

He had a toothpick between his lips, and it bobbed as he grinned. “I’d offer you a shot of whiskey, but…”

Betty stuck her tongue out at him. 

The entire setting felt odd to her. Part of the problem was that in the tests she’d performed through the course of her career, this type of control room they were in right now was usually manned by more than three people, all of them leads in their various departments, all experts in their respective fields, and most assuredly degreed up to their eyeballs for one or two scientific disciplines. And while Betty didn’t think there was a better ESDC captain in the galaxy or a more competent hacker across the quadrants, she was the only rocket scientist on the premises, which was unnerving considering they were testing a potentially history-altering engine. 

“Do you want me to start it?” Jellybean asked, already moving her fingers towards Betty’s keyboards. 

Betty inched her laptop away. “No, I’ll do it!” 

She winced. 

Her own voice sounded shrill to her, and she felt her face warming to a significant level in response. She needed to get a grip. The tag around hers and Jughead’s wrists dinged simultaneously, and sure enough, a slight rise in her core temperature was noted by the nanobots in her body.

Jughead shot her a look of understanding and shot a pointed eyebrow at the water bottle perched nearby. 

Sighing, Betty took a gulp of her cold water and began the process of starting her engine. 

The engine itself, though fully visible on the 200” viewing screen in front of them, was actually nowhere near their control room. The actual engine was situated 100 yards away--a safety measure that protected people from possibly catastrophic explosions, even if the actual facility had considerably modern fire-proofing protocols. 

The fact that the worst thing that could happen--which was the engine exploding to smithereens--couldn’t possibly hurt them should calm Betty, but she couldn’t help it that she had assigned power to the prospect of failure. Failure, she knew, would feel like a punch to the gut.

She’d had this conversation with Jughead multiple times since she first brought it up months ago, but the feelings of calm were always overshadowed anew by repeated feelings of anxiety. 

Now here they were in this facility, deep in the Boyegan star system where all news of her failure may never leave its atmosphere and thus save her a ton of humiliation. She ought to stop worrying, really. 

Jughead did a splendid job renting the use of the place--an old military testing facility that the ESDC had forgotten but was so deeply hidden and embedded in its system that it still, somehow, got funding for maintenance. None but a handful of ESDC engineers and soldiers roamed its acres and acres of halls--much like the many isolated ESDC outposts across the many galaxies.

“You guys okay over there?” came a disembodied voice overhead. “Ya’ll haven’t killed yourselves in there, have you?”

Betty’s fists tightened over her keyboard. 

“We’re fine, Lieutenant,” Jughead replied in what Betty has come to call his ESDC voice. “Our lead scientist is just dotting all her i’s and crossing all her t’s.”

“Take your time, captain. Just making sure. Carry on.”

The overhead feed went silent and Betty knew it was now or never.

“Betty, remember what we always say?” Jughead said, his voice gentling.

She did. “There is nothing to be afraid of. Out here in space, we got time and we got _us.”_

He nodded. She started the sequence and fired up her engine. 

It took about fifteen seconds just for the processes to begin--for the chemical reactions to take effect, for the oil and fluids to move through the machine, for the indicators to start blinking, and for the nanobots to activate and begin to do their job. Betty hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath until the tags dinged to signal her interrupted breathing pattern. 

But then the engine purred to life, and the warp core attached to it began to pulse like a heartbeat, beating a steady and strong rhythm. 

“Sis,” Jellybean gasped. “It’s--”

“It’s working,” Betty said breathlessly, getting up from her seat and checking the readings. “It’s working!” 

She realized that she was screaming and Jughead had picked up on her excitement. She clapped her hands, grinning as the warp core continued on--living, breathing and producing the energy that made the universe turn. 

Jughead bounced out of his seat, too, clasping her shoulder. “Baby, you’ve--”

The warp core missed a beat, and instantly, the readings began to fluctuate. Something was going wrong and Betty snapped back into focus. She read the indicators on her dashboard with quickfire calculations. Her fingers flew over her keyboard while ordering Jellybean to make adjustments, and for a few more seconds, the engine stabilized, but a minute later, the engine sputtered and began to smoke, the warp core powered down, and a burst of sparks led to tiny flames. 

The testing room responded with a cloud of fire retardant, extinguishing anything flammable, and sending the room into lockdown as it flashed red warning lights. 

Betty enabled the engine’s own fire-safety protocols, powering it down right after. When the engine was cooled and the smoke cleared, the testing room resumed its normal lighting and lockdown was lifted. 

Betty knew that her engine had failed, knew that it almost caught on fire, and her mind was spinning at all ways it could have possibly gone wrong as she stood there, staring at the tendrils of smoke rising out of the engine. 

*********************

Betty remembered the deafening silence that followed the warnings and alerts, the incessant beeping that blended together in a discordant orchestra, and then the hiss of oxygen being sucked out of the testing chamber.

She didn’t know how long the silence lasted. It could’ve been a few seconds or a few minutes, but her brain went on auto-pilot and she began saving all the data, telling Jellybean to do the same, and taking note of her observations.

Strangely, it had felt like putting on a hat she hadn’t worn in months—the corporate scientist hat, where there were post-mortem procedures, where debriefs were part of the process. 

When Jughead asked her what she needed him to do, she told him to suit up; they were going in.

Putting on hazmat suits, they made their way to the testing chamber while Jellybean manned the control center. 

Jughead helped her make notations, all of which were being recorded, and when Betty felt they had observed all they could, Jughead helped her unhook the engine, remount it on its gurney, and wheel it back to the facility’s engineering station, where it could stay for the meantime. 

They had the place rented for a week so there was no hurry removing it from the base, for now.

Jellybean met them at engineering as well, bringing with her all the data they had saved and all their personal equipment.

Betty calmly told Jughead and Jellybean than she would meet them back in the ship.

“I just have a few things to finish up for the day.”

Jughead and Jellybean had exchanged looks, but she was grateful when all Jughead said, “We’ll see you at the Wyrm. Don’t take too long, okay?”

“I won’t.”

That was two hours ago. She had already messaged Jughead twice that she was okay, that she was just making some last minute observations.

What she’d been doing was stare at the remains of her engine, writing down her thoughts and possible recomputations in her little notebook, all while she sat sulking at her temporary work desk.

As the two and a half hour mark drew close, Jughead messaged that he was coming to get her.

She didn’t tell him no. She suspected that if she did, he would turn around and leave her alone, and she was done being alone. She was ready for his company and comfort.

When Jughead arrived, he unslung a backpack while he sat at the edge of her desk. 

He pulled out a refilled water bottle and a sandwich. “Cucumber, cheese, and light mayo, exactly how you want it. If you want something sweet, I’ve got apples and peanut butter in here, too.”

She cast him an affectionate smile and took the sandwich. It still astounded her—the extra touches he put into their quality time. He could’ve just come here to be with her, and that would’ve meant the world, but to be here and bring along a care package was incredibly loving. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Are you okay?”

She began unwrapping her sandwich. “I’ll be okay. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight. I’m so disappointed.”

She saw the corner of his lip tilt. “It worked, though. For a couple of minutes, it worked.”

She tossed him a rather unkind look and he looked slightly chagrined, but it didn’t wipe the smirk from his face. 

“And people say _I’m_ the cynical one in the marriage.”

She scoffed. “Well, if you want to be optimistic, I didn’t burst into tears when my engine caught fire. That’s an epic accomplishment considering this--” She made hand circles around her middle. While she wasn’t obviously pregnant to others, her breasts looked and felt bigger and she could feel the whisper of a bump. Her belly was still relatively flat, but the bump was firming--basically impossible to suck in. The waist of her jeans had already tightened and she had caught herself looking into waist adjustors for pregnant women online. 

He bit his lip, no doubt holding back a grin. He didn’t say anything to refute her, but his eyes did shamelessly scan her from head to toe and the remembrance of last night’s romp in the bedroom sent a flush rising up her neck. At nineteen weeks, she felt renewed and invigorated. Her morning sickness had waned at twelve and had been replaced with what she considered an insatiable libido that Jughead was only too happy to accommodate. They’d always had a distinctly sexual relationship, but the last three weeks had been extraordinary, even for them. 

She was worried, at first, that the nanobots in her body would report her activities to the good doctor, but when she sheepishly asked Dr. Takyi about it, she said the nanobots were smarter than that. “They are familiar with the bodily responses to sexual activity. If the usual symptoms check out, they cool their jets and just go about their usual business. So don’t worry—I won’t know. Not like I’d want to, anyway…”

Thus, assured, Betty felt free to be her horny self, and a good thing, too, because her libido was going in overdrive.

It was like a switch inside her had malfunctioned, where Jughead could get an orgasm out of her by pressing an easy-access button. He was amazed by this, and there was really no reason for her to complain, but because of that she wanted him all the time. 

Most days she just went with it without a fuss, but when she felt horny for no reason whatsoever, except perhaps because she cranked a ratchet in the engine room and her mind instantly went to “You could be holding Jughead’s dick,” which made her drop everything and seek Jughead like a bloodhound--he was usually at the bridge, like a captain doing his job--she did have to ask herself if she should be seeking professional help.

All her research told her this was just one aspect of a normal pregnancy. Some women didn’t see any changes to their sex drive. Others felt it plummet. Some were insatiable in their first trimester and then lose it the rest of the weeks. It was different each time, but whatever chaos one’s pregnancy was wreaking on one’s body, most everything would go back to normal once one stopped nursing. 

Frankly, she was afraid Jughead would tire of it.

 _Yeah, right._

Even right now, bummed by her failure, she was feeling that tell tale ache in her panties. Misery and desire were a potent mix. 

She made a sound of frustration. The last time she was this horny for him, it was her first three months on the Wyrm, where her crush on the captain’s son intensified everytime he walked out of his cabin shirtless from bed, or when he would come back from a bounty hunt, victorious or furious, depending on the outcome. It only got worse each time they made mad dashes for the hot shower and their skin would touch, aggressively, down that narrow hallway, and all she would have to relieve her fantasies was her vibrator or her fingers.

All things considered, what better way to get over her disappointment than having sex with her husband? “There aren’t any cameras in this room, are there?”

His eyebrows wrinkled his brow, his look questioning. She didn’t feel much like elaborating with words, pushing, first, one side of her jumper and then the other, until it was pooled at her waist.

Jughead didn’t need much more than that. Apparently, having a horny wife was his new normal. He simply picked her up, settled her on the desk, and got on his knees to undo the laces of her work boots.

She could tease him about being presumptive, because that’s always fun, but she was too pleased that he was so willing to give her what she needed, without using too many words. 

He had tossed both her boots over his shoulders and he was already working on the side buttons of her overalls.

She leaned the heels of her palms back on the edge of the desk, lifting her hips up so he could drag her pants and underwear off her. “My therapist said this was okay—comfort sex, because, you know, endorphins. What does your therapist think?”

He glanced up from his vantage point kneeling in front of her, his smirk tilted to one side. “That I should give my pregnant wife whatever she wants.”

She watched him get rid of her clothing with flourish and she felt that clench of desire in her core. He started to kiss the inside of her thigh and she whimpered, wondering unreasonably whether any of this felt like an obligation to him. “I’m sorry I’m such a nympho.”

“Don’t apologize for that,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her thighs and settling them on his shoulders. “Grab my hair.”

 _Oh, God._ She sank her fingers into the silky strands on his head and yanked. His tongue dove right into her, circling her clit. The sensations were electric and her cries echoed through the room. All she could do to savor the pleasure was close her eyes and throw her head back, letting him coaxed her already burgeoning desire to climax.

It didn’t take much. It never did these last few weeks. She was coming, her first orgasm spreading through her like oscillating waves. 

His name punctuated her cries and her grip on his hair tightened. She could feel him groaning against her in approval.

His tongue worked her until her moans waned, and as the orgasm wore off, he met her gaze while his lips gently soothed the tremors of her thighs and his hands squeezed firmly to give her a gentle massage.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“A bit,” she gasped. She was afraid that if she said she felt great, he would stop, and she couldn’t bear the thought. She wanted more.

He peppered tender kisses on her belly, where a barely discernible bump was just making its presence known. 

She was just about to smile, but she felt his fingers making circles against her pussy before pushing inside her.

Again, she was swept into desire, her body unfurling for him. His lips traveled from her belly button and made his way up to the underside of her breasts. His other hand pushed her shirt up as he went.

Her cotton bras were wireless, made for maximum comfort and lift for her growing breasts. They were incredibly sensitive and his rough hands were careful, pushing back the material and cupping her breasts gently as he marked the tight valley between them with his lips.

The feel of his fingers alternating between circling her clit and thrusting inside her was a pleasurable, steady climb to her climax.

“That’s so good, Juggie,” she breathed. “Keep doing that.”

Even as his mouth enveloped one nipple, she could feel him smiling, no doubt smug about what he could do to her. He sucked, gently, laving her nipple with his tongue before transferring his mouth to the other peak.

She was cresting. Her back arched unbidden, pushing her breast deeper into his mouth as she felt her body shattering from her core out.

The sounds that left her lips were _much_ louder. This orgasm spread tremors through her entire body. She was breaking out in a sweat, and sometime between his cunnilingus and his finger fucking, she had lost her ponytail.

“That sounded like you’re feeling _much_ better,” he mused, looking so very pleased with her and himself.

She could barely catch her breath to reply, but as she looked him over, she saw that he was still fully clothed, and two orgasms in, she was feeling more generous.

She pushed herself up and Jughead was so quick to help her that for a moment, his darkly sexy persona was replaced by the doting expectant dad that he was, but the moment she hopped off the table and began to take his shirt off, that inspiring sexual energy darkened his eyes again. He shrugged his own shirt off, which allowed her to undo the belt of his cargos and push his boxers off him.

His dick was already on full attention, and she was tempted to drop to her knees and suck him, but he directed her hand to stroke him while he grabbed her by the back of her neck to kiss her.

She groaned at the mild roughness. It made rare appearances these days—he was always so careful with her, and she told him, time and time again, that he was never too rough with her, not even when he thought he was going all-out. She missed him leaving imprints of his fingers on her thighs, she missed the feel of being pounded into the wall, or when his thrusts into her rattled her head. 

She ran her grip along his length and his deep moan vibrated between them as they kissed. He was gentling again and she desperately wanted him to go hard, so she bit his lip.

He hissed, but she knew just enough pressure to arouse him.

“Don’t do that,” he growled.

She smirked. “Or what?” She trailed her lips along his neck and along his shoulder, where she used teeth again. She curled the fingers of her other hand and scraped her nails down his back.

He tilted her chin up so he could capture her mouth with his. The deep sound from his throat as his kiss grew urgent sent shivers through her body. She intensified the stroking of his cock, and if her mouth weren’t so preoccupied with his, she might have dropped to her knees and ordered him to fuck her face, but she had apparently done a good job coaxing the beast out of him.

When their lips dislodged, he whipped her around and bent her over the table. He was so abrupt that her palms slapped against the table’s surface, just to keep her balance. It was exactly what she wanted.

Crying out her affirmation, she let him tilt her pelvis up as he thrust into her.

The explosion of pleasurable sensations had her eyes rolling into the back of her head. “Oh, baby, yes…”

She felt his hot palm settle heavy against the base of her spine while his other hand tangled with the strands of her hair. The sting of pulled hair sent tiny shocks of pleasure through her body, and when his other hand began to move her through a rhythm, the jarring crash of his body against hers, over and over, sent her reeling.

She came almost immediately, and after she crested, she desperately cried for him not to stop. He didn’t, and as she gasped for more, his hand released her hair, only to lead her hand to touch herself. 

She felt even more turned on from her warm wetness, whispering over her shoulder obscenities, how this was all him, and that he did this to her.

He clearly liked that, groaning as he pressed his teeth into the skin of her back and licking the marks he left behind.

Their fingers circled her clit together and his hips never lost its rhythm. The waves of orgasm building from her center were intense and she was powerless to stop them.

“Harder, Juggie,” she pleaded, thrusting her own body back to meet his.

The pounding of his hips rattled her, but it was just what she needed to shatter to pieces. As she came apart with her rough, loud cries, she heard his defeated groan through her haze and felt his hips stutter to the rhythm he needed.

His thrusts waned just as the last of her orgasm was spent, and they were still but for the gasping of their bodies.

She felt the press and give of his chest against her spine, and her arms, curled beneath her chest, was the only thing keeping her breasts from touching the cold surface of the table.

“Holy fuck.” He punctuated it with a tender kiss along her back.

She hummed, pleased for both of them. “Excellent landing, Captain.”

He laughed amidst their post-coital bliss. “I asked you not to call me that when it’s just the two of us.”

She grinned but didn’t argue. “You got it, Cowboy.”

He didn’t object, this time.

They began the sluggish process of righting themselves and cleaning up, and when they were fully clothed and hydrated once more, they cuddled on the floor, Jughead leaning against the wall.

“Are you sure there aren’t any cameras here?” It was the most belated and useless question in the planet, she realized.

He probably knew it, too. “No clue, but there are worse things than being caught on camera doggie styling my wife.”

There was really nothing else to do except eat her sandwich.

The effects, of course, of great sex, was the massive production of endorphins, which definitely put her in a much better mood.

“You’re right, you know.” Her mouth was full of sandwich and it came out as little more than a grumble.

He grinned, leaning over and tilting his ear up with his finger. “What’d you say? Say that louder so I can hear it.”

She rolled her eyes. “You want to turn on your recorder, perhaps?”

He laughed, which made her shove a slice of apple into his mouth to shut him up.

“I said you’re right. About my engine. For two, maybe two-and-a-half minutes, _this_ version of my engine, with the cheap parts and its sustainable, affordable materials, _worked._ It worked, Juggie.”

He nodded, chewing. “Damn straight.”

She grinned, and she did feel lighter. More optimistic. “I mean, sure, it gave out after a couple of minutes, but those two minutes are proof that I almost have it right. JB and I just have to adjust some of the algorithms and recalibrate the programming, maybe. I have to figure it out, but I’m pretty sure I can do it.”

The weight of Jughead’s arm on her shoulders was comforting. The touch of his lips on the side of her head buoyed her optimism even more. “I’m really proud of you, Betty.”

She squeezed his hand. She had hoped that the engine would work perfectly, but she knew that thought had been unrealistic from the beginning. That the engine had worked for that long at its first test was far more than she could’ve realistically hope for. 

She had recordings of all readings, had video footage to look back on, had logs on every single event in the sequence. She had data, and she already had theories on what could’ve gone wrong. Even with the engine failing, she had moved forward and that, she thought, was all that mattered.

“This’ll work, Jug.”

He had that look in his eyes. The one that told her he believed in her, that she could do anything she put her mind to. It was all love and softness and conviction. She had been empowered by that single look in the past and it still did. “Never doubted it for a second.”

***************

Jughead stared at the empty pilot’s seat from his vantage point at the captain’s chair. He’d wondered about it so many times--about who he would get to fill that seat, when the only pilot in the universe he could trust with his family was himself. 

It was tough, relinquishing control. And strange, as well. He should be proud to be Captain of this ship. It was certainly a rank he valued in the ESDC. He liked leadership--sometimes he even thought he was good at it, but flying was a tangible thing. It was something he so clearly affected. When his ship cut through the air, moving forward, turning circles, transporting important matter or people, it was a real thing, firing his synapses, making his blood flow, tightening his muscles, and pumping adrenaline through his veins. 

The only thing better was sex. With Betty. There was no wonder he loved both flying and making love to her. 

But as captain of the Whyte Wyrm, he couldn’t be its pilot at the same time--at least not for long. Now, perhaps, where their profit was modest and steady. If he wanted something more for his family, which was going to grow in approximately 18 weeks—Betty was now at week 22–he had to do his part in expanding his options. 

For now it was business as usual, with Jellybean as their designated hacker and computer expert, Betty as their crack engineer, risk manager, and explosives expert, and FP, who had semi-retired himself to Quartermaster and Sailing Master--jobs he used to do anyway, when he wasn’t catching bounties with Jughead—minus the responsibilities of a Captain. 

“So have you been looking at those links I’ve been sending you?” Jughead asked his father, who was currently plotting a course to the planet Thwayle in the Millea star system. 

FP barely looked up from his work. “What’s that, kid?”

“Those links,” Jughead repeated, his tone mild and unhurried. “You know--articles, videos, how-tos… easy to digest stuff about pregnancy and delivery. Really short reads. I may have even sent along a listicle or two.”

“Oh, those. Yeah. Really fascinating stuff.”

Jughead sighed, shaking his head. FP’s response was a sure sign that he hadn’t read a thing. “Fine, but don’t start freaking out when Betty goes into labor and I happen to be somewhere else. That’s a true possibility, especially when I start taking missions from the Vet Reassignment Division.”

FP was unmoved, never flinching from his task at hand. “Son, you and I both know that your mother left me for being exactly this--the asshole who didn’t read up on What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Also--your Baby Mama, your job.”

He couldn’t with his father, sometimes. 

Jellybean snorted from her station.

Jughead was not ready to let this go. “Dad, this isn’t about you. This is about the safety of Betty and _your grandchild._ If Betty goes into labor without me, she’s going to need someone’s help. I’m counting on you and JB to step up if I’m not around. Are you telling me that you’re going to let Betty fly herself to a medical facility while she’s having contractions? Or if you manage to get her to the maternity ward, are you going to leave her in the delivery room, surrounded by strangers?”

“Kid, you’re getting melodramatic again. You know that drives me crazy.”

He knew his father was going to get this way, but he was ready to bring out the big guns. “Deal with it. This is my family and I’m not fucking around. Do I have to get mom, or Alice, or both to live with us the last eight weeks of this?”

Predictably, FP looked horrified. “Whoa, whoa! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!”

“Because I’ll do it. I swear. They’re their own brand of bonkers, but they’re both excited about the baby and I’m sure they’ll be more than happy--”

_“Boy.”_

Jughead was going in for the kill. “I’m not even kidding. I have both moms’ blessing on this.”

“Listen, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with those two, but if you’re conspiring with them now—“

“They’ll do it if I ask them.”

“Oh, fer-- _fine,_ you savage little shit. I’ll take a look at your goddamn links.”

Jughead nodded. He wasn’t even smiling. He was just glad to talk some sense into FP. “Thank you. And I strongly recommend signing up for the Breathing Classes--my credit information’s in the email I sent you, so charge it to my account. The class is virtual, so you’ll have to hook up your device to the shooting range downstairs. You’ll get a certification in the end.”

“Call the Exorcist, JB. I think Alice’s spirit has possessed your brother.”

“Oh, grow up, dad,” JB groaned from her corner. “I took the class. It ain’t bad, and I wanna be ready for when the nibling decides to come out.”

_“Nibling?”_

“It’s the gender neutral term for niece and nephew, FP. Get with the program.”

FP flashed his daughter a glare. “Don’t call me FP, squirt.”

Jellybean made faces, mocking the way FP was speaking to her, but she didn’t argue.

Jughead crossed his arms over his chest. “Are we good, dad?”

“Yeah, we’re good. Christ, there’s so much of Gladys in you, it’s scary.”

Jughead fought to tamp down his flinch at FP’s words. FP wasn’t the first person to tell him that there was more of Gladys in him that he’d like to admit. It was Betty who first said it, observing how his drive and conviction were traits inherited from his mother. He may look like the splitting image of FP, but it was the Gladys in him that possibly powered his determination, ambition, and maybe even his killer instinct.

The hiss of the bridge door opening had him smiling even before he turned to greet Betty’s arrival. “Morning all!” 

FP and Jellybean responded with preoccupied tones.

Hotdog followed closely at her heels. He’d been doing that a lot, lately—escorting Betty around the ship whenever she had to be alone. Jughead couldn’t help but wonder if Hotdog was sensing a shift in _him_ , of the hypervigilance he was desperately trying to curtail for everyone’s sanity.

Hotdog demanded his pats from FP and Jughead before settling himself beside Jellybean.

Betty came over to greet Jughead with a quick peck on the lips. “Good morning, Captain.”

“You’re exceptionally chipper today.”

Her shrug looked more like an attempt to seem nonchalant, but Jughead could see the bounce in her step as she settled into her station. “Am I? I guess I’m excited for a change in routine after weeks of just engineering stuff. I miss being out in the field, even if it’s just for supplies.”

Jughead tried not to let his anxiety overcome him. She was right. It was just supplies, but they all knew Thwayle wasn’t like going to the Goblin Fair. When they picked up in Thwayle, they went armed.

Not that they’d ever had an encounter, themselves. For the most part, the rule was that if everyone stayed in their lanes, which meant _not_ asking any stupid questions, everything would be fine, but nobody left their guns at home. They’d also “heard” that encounters had occurred, but since they couldn’t ask...

The planet’s cluster of moons hosted a collective planetary marketplace, less for tourists and more for inter-galactic 4th Quadranters. The merchants sold supplies, ship parts, weapons, and perhaps the occasional contraband. How the merchants acquired their inventory was a question for the authorities, but the Thwaylian Republic who allowed these merchants to sell their wares on their network took loud pride in the “legality” of their trade. 

Jughead wondered if the Republic actually believed that or they were crowing loud enough to drown out the sound of their complicity in space piracy. 

A chuckle rippled from FP’s station. “I knew it. You’re sick of us.”

Betty made a face. _“No._ That’s _not_ what I said, _dad.”_

FP grinned but didn’t argue any further. 

Jughead met eyes with him briefly and FP’s grin withered almost immediately. 

Jughead didn’t even realize he was making any sort of face that could sour FP’s otherwise light mood. “We’ll be in and out, quick as possible. We’ve never had problems before so this should go smoothly, too.”

Betty nodded. “I’ve also been dying for Zayna’s Interstellar Pierogies. Like, pierogies aren’t allowed to be that good so far out in the universe, but they are.”

Jellybean’s eyes brightened with excitement. “You read my mind, sis! I’m putting in an order for 3 dozen of them right now!”

Jughead tried not to flinch. Taking that trip from their suppliers to the deli was more time than he’d care to spend on the planetary system. “That’s kind of on the other side of the moon…”

Betty shot him a pleading look. That wide-eyed, hopeful look of a pregnant woman who knows that he could never say no to her when she looked at him that way. “This is Level 10 prenancy craving, Juggie. I’m not even kidding.”

 _Shit._ He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine, but it’s a pick up and go. Order everything ahead. I don’t want to stay any longer than we should.”

Betty grinned and Jellybean pumped her fist in the air. Jughead had to exchange looks with FP again.

This time FP was laughing to himself. “You tell ‘em, tough guy.”

Jughead glared at him and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at his father.

“We’ll be in and out of Thwayle before you know it,” Betty said, and then she started humming a tuneless tune. 

It was, Jughead knew, the sound of his pregnant wife getting what she wanted from him.

***************

Thwayle was not a great experience for Jughead. 

The place was just rough enough to remind him of Pietho and--he didn’t want to admit it even as he thought it at every turn--Betty was just pregnant enough to trigger him when he thought something was remotely out of place.

He had helped her into her kevlar, just as he’d done many times in the past, which only served to keep him abreast of the fact that he had notched the belts just a little farther out. She had laughed that she was growing, but that just meant that people were going to _know,_ and in this place--Thwayle, he didn’t want people to know. 

News of their wedding was still making the rounds, so the merchants--perhaps by some inherent desire to please their customers no matter how rough they were--congratulated them on their marriage. He didn’t want word of the pregnancy getting around in case someone who may take advantage of that fact would get that information. 

He had enemies, and he probably didn’t know half of them. 

Jughead’s hypervigilance was making his body respond to sounds, sights, and smells. He stood close by Betty, thinking perhaps that he could shield her if he had to. 

“Boy, you’re making me nervous,” FP grumbled from the corner of his lip as they waited for a supplier to dispatch their order. 

Jughead’s hand reflexively tightened along the collar of his kevlar. “Sorry.”

“Is it just me or is it particularly sweltering?” Betty whispered, fanning herself irritably. 

It was just her. The temperature was comfortable, as far as Jughead could tell. “You need to hydrate.”

She didn’t disagree, taking a swill from her water bottle. “I’m uncomfortable.”

His alarm bells went up. “Why? What do you see?”

Her eyebrow arched in surprise. “Nothing. I am literally uncomfortable. Kevlar was not made for folks like me--you know.”

 _Right._ “I can loosen it a bit more for you.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not tight, just weird--”

A commotion erupted several stalls down, at the clothes smith. Loud shouts punctuated the air, followed by the rush of people breaking out in a run.

Jughead jumped, raising his firearm as he backed Betty, almost forcefully, in a protective corner. Everyone around them reacted similarly and FP hissed a curse as he raised his own rifle. 

Somebody was screaming _“Everybody down on the floor!”_ which wasn’t directed specifically at them, but was alarming nonetheless. The GBI SWAT team was now piling into the surrounding area. Smoke bombs had gotten employed nearby, but not near enough that Betty would be breathing any of it. Still, Jughead pushed her back, and he could hear Betty’s whispered complaints in his ear. 

“Jug, I will back up! No need to stuff me in the corner!”

He was too worried to argue.

“We were there just a couple of minutes ago,” FP said as they watched the raid progress from the sidelines. They’d stopped by the shop earlier, picking up their order of oxygen tanks and hi-tech exo-wear. If they’d stayed just a bit longer, they’d have been caught in the commotion.

The pop of gunfire had Jughead’s instincts screaming to take them away from there. “We’re leaving,” he said. 

The merchant transacting with them looked distressed. “Oh, must you? That has nothing to do with us.”

Jughead wanted to yell that he had to get his pregnant wife away from any sort of live rounds, but one of the GBI agents ordered everybody to stay where they were. Members of the SWAT team backed him up in his demands, making their presence known as they stood ready to shoot at anyone who dared to flee.

Betty sighed as she sank into a chair. “Great. The pierogies are going to get cold.”

Jughead ran his hand down his face. “Really?”

She shrugged. 

FP laughed. “She’s got her priorities straight, if you ask me.”

The merchant, perhaps buoyed by the fact that his customers had no choice but to stay, offered her some snacks. 

Jughead bit his lip to keep his protests at bay. Thankfully, Betty declined. He was a big believer of expanding their food horizons, but they’d been less adventurous of late, given that the wrong alien food can be toxic. 

Cowboys, in general, had no quarrel with the GBI. As far as the GBI was concerned, cowboys tended to be on their side of the law, and Jughead couldn’t say otherwise, considering he’d worked with them on both a professional and personal capacity. But as much as he leaned towards trusting the organization, his last foray into intergalactic intrigued had illustrated the fallibility of any organized system. 

Before the generals of the ESDC betrayed his trust, he thought the ESDC above corruption. He understood the necessity of politics, which was a function of any hierarchy, but he honestly thought the upstanding officers of the ESDC couldn’t be bought. 

His naivete cost him, and while he still believed in the ESDC and what it stood for, it had become clear to him that an organization’s reputation is just as effective in cloaking corruption as it is uplifting the people who work in it. 

He’d gained a healthy skepticism of those labeled as the “good guys”, so while the GBI had so far done nothing to shake his trust, he was going to stay cautious, anyway. 

When the GBI started hauling out their suspects, their agents began fanning out, interviewing everyone within the vicinity. 

Inevitably, one approached them. The agent wasn’t in SWAT gear, but he wasn’t in a suit, either. He did, however, wear a dark jacket with the words GBI in big, bold letters splayed on the back of it. He looked like he got summoned while at his Hamptons neighbor’s barbecue. 

His dark brown skin glowed golden against the orange light of Thwayle’s sun. His dark glasses made his face impassive and cold. He removed those glasses as he approached them and it instantly made him seem less threatening. He flashed his identification through his tag and his picture and information was projected in the air between them. 

He was one Agent Matthew Anton D. Moore. 

“Forsythe Jones III?” 

It always surprised him when he got called by his birth name. It was only ever used by strangers and when he was in trouble, so it never really struck him as a good thing. “That’s me.”

Agent Moore nodded, shifting his gaze to FP and Betty briefly. “Your reputation precedes you. Everyone here keeps talking about the cowboy, and you have a considerable file with the GBI. All of you do.”

His gaze stayed a second longer on Betty’s face, which made Jughead a little defensive. It wasn’t jealousy at all. He knew that her name would have pulled up Hal, and he didn’t like her to be unnecessarily reminded of her father. 

Still, Jughead didn’t want to antagonize him. The GBI, in general, had shown him nothing but respect. It was relationship and reputation he preferred to keep. 

“For better or worse,” Jughead said, trying to keep his tone light in spite of his brittle mood. “What can we do for you, agent?”

“We need to speak to Forsythia Perenelle Jones.”

Jughead was instantly on guard, the warning bells ringing between his ears. “She’s busy. Tell me what-about and I’ll pass the message on to her.”

The agent put up his hands. “She’s not in trouble—in spite of her known proclivity to use illegal means to collect data—“

Jughead frowned. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Agent Moore nodded, acknowledging perhaps that Jughead had no obligation to make it easy for him. “We need something from her—information that the GBI couldn’t obtain because we don’t have the skills she does. After you’re done with your business, do you mind letting your sister know that we encourage her to hop onto our ships for about forty five minutes? I can give you the coordinates to pass onto her.”

FP made a sound. “By herself? I don’t think so.”

Agent Moore arched an eyebrow. “She’s an adult, isn’t she?”

Jughead could feel the grooves on his face deepening. He didn’t appreciate how the agent was trying to dictate the rules of the situation. “Even adults need lawyers.”

One of the benefits of marrying into the Coopers, he supposed, was that he knew there would be an entire army of lawyers ready to back them up at a moment’s notice. It was strange how he was so easily catching on to the advantages that came with the Cooper connection.

Agent Moore’s veneer did not crack. “Let me reiterate that she isn’t a suspect.”

“Reassuring, coming from you.” Jughead wanted answers _now._ He wasn’t going to send Jellybean in there without knowing exactly what Agent Moore wanted from her, but he knew the agent wasn’t going to say it in front of all these people. “How about this? Come to our ship--bring your partner if you have one, and we can have coffee. Sound nice? Dad has a bunch of upside down pineapple cupcakes in our refrigerator.”

The agent finally gave up a small sigh. “Sounds great.”

Jughead nodded, relieved that he was able to get a fraction of control. It was necessary, because he knew that Jellybean was no angel. Yes, her job on the Wyrm was primarily to get restricted information on people and things that they can use to their advantage, but he also knew that Jellybean had a tendency to take more information than necessary. Jughead had no idea of the extent of her hacks, but given that she was able to hack into ESDC files, he was probably incapable of fathoming the amount of data Jellybean had stored in her harddrives. 

It wasn’t the first time, if ever, that Jellybean would’ve gotten unsavory information, but nobody ever asked what she used it for and she never seemed to get in trouble for it, so FP’s periodic fatherly warnings to her about being careful was almost perfunctory.

“Finish your transactions and your errands,” Agent Moore said. “When you’re done, let me know and we’ll come on over to your ship. I’m sending you our contact information.”

Their tags dinged and Jughead could hear Betty sighing behind him. 

Agent Moore left. 

Hissing curse words, Jughead hurried them along with their shopping. In spite of it all, shopping was something they had to get done, lest they spent the next six months low on supplies.

He could feel the worry radiating off Betty. She didn’t say anything as they moved about the shops, probably afraid that they would be overheard, but the moment they stepped into the Chopper and their doors closed, she looked ready to launch an onslaught.

“I know he said Jellybean isn’t in trouble, but I’m worried. I don’t know if I trust them,” Betty cried. 

FP sighed as he buckled himself into the navigator’s seat. “We work with the GBI, right? Maybe we should tell JB to give up whatever she has.”

It was times like this that Jughead realized how easy it was to frame his father for crimes he didn’t commit, or how he got himself dragged into illegal dealings in the first place. “Dad, we all know that whatever information Jellybean has, she didn’t obtain it legally. That in itself is something the GBI can use to force her to do things for them that can get her into deep shit with the wrong people.”

“Not only that,” Betty interjected. “People like her--they have reputations to preserve, FP. Hackers pride themselves for being outsiders-- _not_ part of the herd. If she gives anything up to the GBI, she’ll be considered a sellout. She needs to be able to make her own decisions on this.”

Jughead caught Betty’s eye. He didn’t necessarily trust that Jellybean would make the right decisions, if he were being honest, but he could already see that he and Betty disagreed on this point. Jellybean was his little sister. He would always look out for her. Betty saw Jellybean as an actual adult, which Jughead still considered pretty mind-boggling.

He patched Jellybean through the vehicle’s speaker as he powered up the craft. “JB, you are in a shitload of trouble. What did you do?”

Jellybean scoffed. “Whatever are you talking about, doofus?”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t play dumb. You’ve done something and the GBI noticed. The clothes smith at the market just got raided and some agent came over looking for you--said you have information that they need. Spit it out, you little brat—“

“Jug.” Betty shot him a disapproving look.

Jughead growled with frustration. “She thinks she can get away with anything!”

“Settle down.” FP was frowning, but he wasn’t quite as worked up. “JB, tell us what you know and we can help you.”

“There’s nothing to help. I didn’t do anything.”

Her tone was clipped. 

Jughead fired up the Chopper and began their ascent. “JB, I told the GBI to come over to our ship to interview you—“

Jellybean made a sound of annoyance. “You did what? You idiot! Why’d you go and do that?”

He could feel the blood rushing to his face with bubbling irritation. “The alternative was for you to go over to _their_ ship. Alone. I threatened them with lawyers, you little helion, and that spooked them enough to accept my terms, so you’re welcome. You better get your story straight with us before we call them over, because like it or not, _we’re_ not going to be those cowboys on the GBI’s shitlist. We’re expecting a baby, JB.”

“You don’t say! Like, why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“Don’t take that tone with me.” Jughead was feeling a little like his father at this very moment. “You’re gonna tell me what it is that the GBI possibly wants from you--”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Forsythe. You can’t handle the truth. The less you know, the better. Let those GBI bitches come over. I’ll take care of it.”

The feed got cut off and Jughead growled as he tried to get her back online, but it sounded like JB jammed the signal. Jughead cursed, pushing on the accelerator. “She cut me off! She goddamn cut me off!”

“Jug, there’s no need to get there faster,” Betty said, her voice testy. “The GBI aren’t going to show up at the ship without our consent. And I think we’re making a bigger deal of this than we should. You heard JB. She can handle it.”

He grit his teeth, feeling something he’d never felt for Betty, ever: Annoyance. “You don’t know that. She’s never been in this situation before! She’s never gotten summoned by the GBI to give them information--information that, by the way, she probably obtained illegally.”

“Babe, she’s gotten this far in her life without getting arrested. Give her some credit.” 

He’d spent so much of his life watching out for Jellybean, even when he couldn’t, that it irked him a little that Betty was lecturing him on how he should treat his own sister. “You know, just because you’ve spent hours bonding over nanobots, it doesn’t mean that you know JB better than I do. I’ve known her for longer than you have and I know that she reacts poorly to authority, so you can just--”

_“Boy.”_

The moment FP’s voice cut through his idiotic haze, he knew he had said too much. A dark flush was spreading across Betty’s cheeks and her eyes were flashing. The last time her eyes lit with this kind of determination, she stabbed a man through his kevlar. It dawned on Jughead that the only reason he was still breathing was that he was the father of the child growing inside her. 

“Forsythe Pendleton Jones III,” she hissed. “I recognize that Jellybean is your little sister and that you feel responsible for her well-being and safety. You probably do know her better than I do, but you know what else is true? You aren’t the authority on JB. JB is the authority on JB. She isn’t 12. She’s a grown woman, Jughead, so do everyone a favor--get your head out of your ass and calm the fuck down. Also, I don’t appreciate you telling me that I don’t know JB well enough to speak up in her defense. I love her, too, you know.”

_Shit._

“Babe--”

Her jaw stiffened with cutting precision, and Jughead felt the sharpness of it like a whip across his back. “Let’s help JB out--make sure her rights are protected, and we can all move on from this. And, Jug? I think the couch would work best for you tonight.”

“But--”

FP kicked the back of his leg, which prompted him to clamp his mouth shut. 

His father wasn’t the expert on relationships in general, but if there was anything his father _was_ an expert on, it was probably angry wives. If FP was telling him to shut up, he was going to shut up.

First thing’s first--they were about to receive unwelcome guests onto the Wyrm. They should focus on that, and then he could talk to Betty later. 

*******************

The GBI came over and when they asked to speak to Jellybean alone, Jellybean asked Betty if they could use the engine room. Betty let them, and when Hotdog sat himself beside Jellybean, growling at Agent Moore and his partner, no one told Hotdog to heel. 

The rest of them went back to the bridge where they accessed the engine room audio feed. The receiver still had to be activated from the engine room, but Jellybean said she would enable it, and when the voices of Jellybean, Agent Moore, and Agent Rivero filtered through the bridge’s speakers, they were assured that at least on this part of the plan, Jellybean had complied. 

Part of the reason Jughead wanted the interview to happen on the ship was because it gave them advantages like this. Perhaps the agents knew this. Perhaps they really were just interested in what Jellybean can do for them, so they didn’t mind playing guest in their home.

The agents seemed polite, at least. They explained to Jellybean what their case was and why they needed her help. They needed her to crack a program--within a system they would be gathering into evidence in an upcoming raid, and they only had three chances to get it right, in a limited amount of time, or else the database would be wiped and any potential evidence they could gather from it would be lost, which may result in the economic destruction of 3 entire sectors in the 3rd Quadrant.

“It can have a ripple effect,” said Agent Moore. “It can spread to the rest of the quadrant, even bleed into the 2nd, and when that happens, who knows what the repercussions could be.”

Jellybean was silent for several seconds, and Jughead was worried that she didn’t know what to say, but then she said, “This program--you don’t have access to it yet?”

“Not yet, but we know what it is and how it works--we need to get past its firewall, and fast. Nobody in our network of GBI hackers can do it. We believe you can.”

“And why is that?”

There was another brief silence before Agent Moore spoke again. “Several years ago, you were asked by a hacker group called Galactic Chaos to create a steel tight firewall for them--a firewall that no one can break. You called it the--” 

“Iron Monster. Yeah, that thing… if you don’t disable it on time, it will pack up every single file in its storage links, like a train, and take the information somewhere else, using every existing network of underground pathways to get away, and as it goes, it’ll leave viruses in its wake, like the coal-powered engines of yore that left black smoke as it went.”

“They sold your program to the highest bidder--I don’t want to know what your pay cut was--”

“I didn’t get a pay cut. They did me a favor. I don’t hand out that kind of power for money, Agent Moore.”

“Well, that highest bidder is now using that firewall to further their acts of economic terrorism,” Agent Rivero said. 

Jughead’s stomach dropped. 

“We need your help, Ms. Jones,” Agent Moore said in a more subdued tone. “You created that program. You’re probably the only one who can break it.”

“If they hadn’t already modified it. Even if they did stick to my original program, I’ll have to do weeks and weeks of background research into their operations--”

“We can give you all we have. We’ve been monitoring them for months. All we really need you to do is be on-hand the day of the operation and be ready to crack the code.”

“And when do you expect this to happen? Where?” 

“A few weeks from now,” Agent Rivero said. “Sector 17 of the 3rd Quadrant--in the Niklause star system. We’d patch you through remotely, but that would take time we don’t have. We need you to be there with us. You won’t be in the raiding unit, so you’ll be safe from the action, but you’d be at the perimeter.”

FP made a sound and Jughead shook his head. “Hell, no. They’re not taking Jellybean with them _anywhere.”_

Betty sighed. “Her decision, remember?”

Jughead shot her a baleful look. 

They gave Jellybean a couple of days to decide. If Jellybean went with them, she’d be gone for at least 3 weeks. 

Jellybean didn’t ask what was in it for her. There were a couple of things Jughead could already think of as payback. First of all, Jellybean was lucky enough that they hadn’t arrested her for all her other illegal activities. That in itself was probably cause for her to do this without payment, but knowing his sister, that sort of thing didn’t scare her. 

It was true what he said--she could get away with anything. She could literally find a way out of legal trouble if she really needed to because everything was digital and the digital was her universe. 

So _not getting arrested_ wasn’t her incentive. 

She was doing this because it was her computer program that was going to cause suffering to millions of lives. Jellybean didn’t let a lot of things bother her. She didn’t like to sweat the details because details were all pixels to her. It was the bigger stuff that moved her. This kind of destruction was the sort of thing that made her To Do list. 

One thing that Jughead couldn’t quite figure out was--what favor could possibly be so huge that she had to pay it with such a high price?

When the agents were gone and they were sitting at dinner, Jellybean told them that all that she was going with GBI to help them. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Jellybean simply said. 

Hotdog whined at her feet. 

Jughead met Betty’s eyes and the warning she shot him reminded him to keep his trap shut. What he did say was, “Okay, but be careful. Don’t trust anyone, and if you ever get in trouble with the suits, don’t say anything without a lawyer.”

Betty nodded. “He’s right, JB. My mom and Polly’s got a whole firm of them on retainer.”

FP wagged a finger in Jellybean’s direction. “Don’t try to fix it yourself, okay, kid?”

Jellybean cast him a plaintive smile. “Okay.”

After dinner, Betty went ahead without him, which was a sure sign she was still miffed at him. 

“Couch ain’t so bad,” FP told him with a half-cocked grin. “And your thing sounded like it’ll be a one-nighter. You’ll both be back to your lovey-dovey selves in the morning.”

Jughead rolled his eyes. “Unlike you, I’m not used to my wife getting pissed at me.”

“Give it time.”

Jellybean stood from the table and dumped her plates in the sink. Hotdog followed after her with his tail slapping everything in its wake. “I gotta go and make sure I have everything ready before I call Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

“Can I walk with you?” Jughead asked. 

Jellybean shrugged but didn’t tell him no. He took that as an affirmative. As he stood, he shot his father an apologetic look. They weren’t going to be able to help him with the dishes this time. 

FP waved away his wordless apology, and given that blessing, Jughead followed after Jellybean and Hotdog on their way out of the galley. 

“Are you gonna tell me not to do this?” Jellybean muttered as they went. “Because I saw Betty giving you that look of hers at dinner and I know it was the only thing that kept you from opening that stupid mouth of yours.”

Jughead put his hands up in surrender and sighed. “Look, as long as we’re being honest here, I think this is a terrible idea, mostly because I can’t come with you, but believe it or not, I’m going to let you do this.”

“Oh, yeah? Gold star for Jughead!”

He rolled his eyes. “JB, I practically raised you. Whenever mom was too busy working her two jobs, I took care of you.” He never liked bringing all this up, mostly because he never really quantified it in his head. He didn’t think listing it out mattered. But now that he was talking about it, it felt like he was understanding his own motivations, too. Like when he wrote his thoughts and emotions in his journal and reread them later. 

When Jellybean didn’t interrupt him, he went on.

“You were my responsibility. I gave up hanging out with my friends and going to parties so you wouldn’t be by yourself at home. I took odd jobs to earn money so I can buy us something to eat when mom ran short. The only time I wasn’t there for you was when mom ran off and took you with her, but even then, I sent mom money for _you_ when I began earning money from the ESDC, and when dad cleaned up and got this ship, you were the first person I thought about getting on board, just so I can watch out for you, again.” 

As sad as it all sounded, it was nice to look back and think he had always been driven by love, maybe a little obligation. It was never an empty pursuit. There was always something to live for. 

Maybe eventually it would’ve felt futile, but he supposed he was never as cynical as he said he was. He knew life sucked, but he always believed he can make it better somehow. 

He let out a breath and shook his head, feeling tired, mostly. Much like how he felt after a journaling session. “So... excuse me if it’s a little hard for me to let my little sister run off with some galactic feds, with every risk of them just cuffing you and hauling you off to jail when they’re done using you.”

Jellybean pursed her lips, saying nothing as she cast him a doleful look. “I guess I never thanked you for looking out for me--”

He could feel his face turning molten hot. He didn’t need her gratitude. He was her big brother. It was just what big brothers did. He put his hand up to forestall her. “God, no. It’s not about that. It’s not what I came out here to talk to you about--at least not intentionally.”

She paused to eye him, eyebrow arched. She sighed and shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Thanks, anyway. And just so you know, if I ever do get in trouble, you’ll be the first person I’ll call. You know that, right? You are the one person in this universe I trust.”

The ache in his throat was palpable, because she’s never put those thoughts into words, either. “Yeah.” He swallowed and managed to control his emotions. “So you wouldn’t mind me asking--what favor did you ask that you had to pay that high a price?”

Jellybean frowned, but she didn’t immediately rebuke him, which gave him the patience to wait for her to say something. “Ah, Jug. What does it matter?”

“I don’t know, JB. I just have this feeling that I have to know. There are only two things in this universe that really matter to you--your harddrive and your family. And if I know you, you aren’t storing all your data in one place so...”

Jellybean scoffed, but she didn’t deny what he said, either. “Growing up, I guess I did see you work and sacrifice things in a desperate attempt to keep our family together, and even if I was younger than you--or maybe because I was and you took good care of me?--I never had that same need for it.”

She seemed to be gauging his reaction. This wasn’t a surprise to him at all. Maybe it was exactly what he wanted her to think—that everything was alright. He was just curious to hear it all from her point of view.

She went on. “Maybe because my status quo was always that the ‘family’ was fractured. I never experienced that ‘other’ family the way you did, and it was only when I got older—when I saw the streamed shows and movies, when I read the books and compared it to our lives, that I realized just how much you lost, and maybe I wanted to find out what I missed. I wanted--” she paused, her brows knotted with thought. “Not sure what I wanted, but if we were going to be a family again, it wasn’t going to happen with dad in jail, and if he got out with nothing, he would probably end up right back in there.”

It took a moment for Jughead to piece together Jellybean’s words and figure out what she could possibly be getting at. “Jesus, JB. Did you get dad out of jail?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not by myself—hence the favor. I needed to move data around to get him parole and the only other hacker who could help me do that was a member of Galactic Chaos. Dad had entangled himself with too many people on the wrong side of the law. We both know he’s a good guy, Jug, just that he’s pretty careless about watching out for himself. Untangling him from those people took a lot of hacking because he was already in jail, but I manage to finagle an early parole, got him assigned to the best parole officers and the best AA programs the government had to offer, and here we are. Couldn't say I regret any of it, even with this GBI thing killing the mood.”

This was new to Jughead in every way. He was way too deep in the ESDC and far too bitter and exhausted to care about his father at that point. He had done all he can for FP, and truly, he never thought anyone but himself could help him. It never occurred to him that Jellybean would even try where he left off. “You had to have been—what, 15 when you did this?”

She paused in thought. “Thereabouts.”

“And the Wyrm? Did you get him this, too?”

Jellybean waved her hand dismissively. “More a stroke of luck. Dad had a day off and went to some local digital casino to blow off some steam. He played a digital poker game and I got him a jackpot. I kinda lost sleep over that a little because--what if it made him like gambling? What if he blew it on alcohol? But I guess he really was stone cold sober at the time and he used the money as a downpayment for the Wyrm. I guess the man had a plan, after all.”

“Does he know all this?”

She scoffed. “No. Should I tell him?”

“Shyeah. I mean—maybe! Fuck, don’t. It’ll mess with his head. Ah, shit.”

Jughead ran a hand down his face. He remembered Betty telling him about how the Cooper siblings kept secrets from their parents all the time. He supposed what FP didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. “I guess he really did win the Wyrm at a poker game…”

Jellybean smirked. “I guess he did.”

“And I guess you really are grown up enough to take care of yourself.” He didn’t mean to sound regretful when he said that, or maybe it was just nostalgia. He was so used to keeping Jellybean safe that he often forget that there were swathes of her life that she had to watch out for herself, too. That the little sister he carried around his hip and snuggled with under the blankets in their heaterless trailer home was an adult who just did things her own way. 

“I’m gonna be okay, Jug. I worked hard to be here, too, and I ain’t throwing this life away, especially now, with Betty and the bug. Hey, are you two fighting or something?”

Jughead could call out the quick change in subject, but he could respect Jellybean’s need for emotional retreat. He’s thankful enough that she had told him more than he had ever expected. “Yeah. I pissed her off. Something about me telling her that she doesn’t know you like I do.”

Something between a laugh and a snort burbled out of the back of Jellybean’s throat. “You’re such a moron. The lack of pierogies probably didn’t help.”

“Probably.” As they arrived at the common room, he saw the neatly stacked blanket and pillow on one end of the couch. He sighed. 

“You know, you ought to be thankful Betty’s sweet enough to leave you out with a blanket and pillow. If I were her, I wouldn’t give a shit if you froze your ass off out here.”

He sighed and started fixing his bed. 

“But dad’s right,” Jellybean continued as she started heading in the direction of the cabins. “This is just a one-nighter, just enough to teach you to watch your big, ugly mouth around the best thing that’s ever happened to you. She’s the mother of your child, you know. Carrying that baby for nine months. While you get to run around being a complete jackass.”

“You’re such a brat, I swear.”

Jellybean cackled as she and Hotdog left and he settled into his couch for the night. He was just exhausted enough that in three minutes, he was completely passed out. 

******************

He woke up to the smell of coffee wafting from the coffee table and a self-warming mug, probably left there by FP. 

After some self-encouragement, he sat himself up and took his first shot of caffeine.

As he let the wake-up juice permeate his system, he found himself wondering what his conversation with Betty was going to be like. 

Aside from the tight fit of the couch, sleeping on it had given him a pretty comfortable night’s rest. The pillow and blanket did somewhat assure him that Betty’s displeasure of him was temporary. Still, it would have been nice if he could drive to some nearby store and pick up some flowers to accompany his apology.

It was early, and he ventured to sneak into their bedroom to get himself a fresh set of clothes, but he found that she was no longer in bed. He showered and dressed, then he went to the galley, where he found FP enjoying his own morning coffee. 

“Betty had breakfast yet?” Jughead asked. 

FP shook his head. “You’re the first one I’ve seen here. Wanna fix her something to impress?”

He figured he could use some help. 

Fifteen minutes later, he was pushing through the engine room doors with a tray of fried egg over avocado toast, with a side of skillet-seared cherry tomatoes, a small cup of greek yogurt topped with granola and honey, and a mug of her favorite tea. 

He peeked through the door and of course, the shriek of the hinges got her attention. He held the tray up. “Peace offering?” 

She rolled her eyes but the corner of her lip was tilting upward. “Is that avocado toast?”

“It is.”

“It’s not pierogies, but it’ll do. Let’s go up to the loft.”

He didn’t question how they were going to get the tray up in the loft. He was just thankful that she seemed to have forgiven him enough to get snarky with him.

Somehow, they did manage to get the tray up in the loft and five minutes later, Betty was enjoying her breakfast and even sharing it with him. 

“This is good. Did you cook this yourself?” She bit into her avocado toast and chased it with a fork full of seared tomato and eggs. 

“Dad told me what to do, but yeah, I did it. I mean, it was either this or flying a couple of star systems away to the nearest flower shop.”

She cast him a withering look, even as she held out the avocado toast for him to bite into. “Dad’s had a lot of practice appeasing angry wives.”

He munched on his mouthful of avocado toast, nodding and wisely avoiding any further comment. 

“I took issue with you telling me to shut up about JB,” she said, stabbing her teaspoon into the yogurt to start mixing it. “It felt like you were telling me I was other and not completely part of this family.”

A wave of guilt rippled through him. “Babe, no. I’m sorry. I didn’t think that at all.”

She shrugged and nodded. “I believe you. I had all night to realize that, but yesterday on the ship, I was also already a little upset at that point about how tightly wound you were about everything, from the moment we got off the Chopper to Thwayle. I was good about being understanding about everything—me walking around in that rough environment, you being constantly worried that something would happen, you freaking out that there was live rounds in my general direction, like, I hardly complained when you tried to stuff me in a merchant’s closet—“

“Yeah, I wasn’t thinking. Kinda went into panic mode… sorry.”

“I got that,” she said, gently. “And I was handling it until you yelled at me in the Chopper.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, again. “I was more upset with JB than I was with you. Didn’t mean to take it out on you. I was acting like a jerk.”

Especially in light of what Jellybean revealed to him, he supposed he could’ve given Jellybean more credit. And Betty’s right--his sister wasn’t 12 anymore. 

She waved his words away. “It’s fine. I snapped, too, and I was already a little sorry that I threw you out of the bedroom, but I left out a pillow and blanket for you.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” he replied in a slightly sardonic tone.

A small giggle escaped her. “I’ll make it up to you with a back rub, I--” she gasped, dropping her toast onto the tray. 

A wave of panic filled him. “What? Are you okay? Are you--”

She grabbed his hand and pressed it against the skin of her belly, a belly that was even more firmly round against his palm.

His eyes widened with uncertainty. “Should I--”

“Shush...” she hissed, gently, as she held his hand firmly in place. 

When he felt a soft palpitation flutter against his palm, he forgot how to breathe. “Is that--”

“It’s the bug,” she whispered. “I’ve been feeling it the last couple of weeks but I wasn’t sure if it was gas or--”

“Shhh,” he interrupted, softly, rubbing her belly in a circular pattern, hoping to feel the bug again. He was awash in an incredible wave of love. 

Betty was at a little over 22 weeks now. They were already due for another ultrasound, where couples normally found out the baby’s gender, but they didn’t want to know. They wanted to be surprised, which of course Alice and Polly had many opinions about, but Gladys seemed to relish shutting them all down and Chic was only too glad to see how it was driving his sister and mother crazy. 

The bug didn’t make its presence known again, but Jughead was just glad he had gotten a chance to feel the bug for the first time. He pressed a kiss to Betty’s belly, which she returned with a kiss on his lips. 

“JB’s gonna be okay, you know,” she whispered as they kissed. 

It was hard to think about anything else while he was making out with Betty, but given the talk he had with Jellybean, he was truly convinced that she could take care of herself. “I haven’t a single doubt.”

************************

Jughead was unable to sit with Betty for her 25th week remote visit with the doctor, because they got an alert of a bounty in their midst. It was difficult, leaving Betty all alone on the ship, even if it was just for a few hours. Not only was Betty showing now, but he still felt fresh out of their 23rd week ultrasound, where they actually had a _face_ for the bug, and his instinct to care for them both reared harder than ever. 

Jellybean still wasn’t back from her mission with the GBI and Hotdog could only offer so much support, especially since he was pretty blue himself at Jellybean’s absence. 

Betty, ever pragmatic, sent them off with reminders to be careful and for them to summon her if they needed anything. 

It was an easy bounty. They always stuck to those when they were one person short on the ship, and Jughead was already gearing up for those week-long missions from Vet Reassignment, so the smaller, but surer bounties were more practical in the long run. 

When they got back to the Wyrm, victorious but tired, Betty met them at ship bay. He noticed immediately that 2nd trimester glow was just the tiniest bit muted. 

“Hey, everything alright?” he asked. 

She sighed and made a face. “I tested positive for gestational diabetes, Jug.”

A wave of sympathy came over him. “Oh, babe, I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, but did fall into the offered comfort of a hug. “It’s fine. It just means I can’t eat as much bread and cake as I want, and that I have to stick monitoring contacts lenses into my eyes everyday, and I’ll possibly need some insulin--ugh, it sucks.”

“It does. Not the worst though, right?”

“No, but depending on the bug’s size, I may have to deliver at 39 weeks…”

“That just means I get to meet my grandkid a week earlier,” FP chimed in from the Chopper doors. 

Jughead gave her a tight squeeze. “Hey, if you need someone to help you shoot insulin into your buttcheek, I’m happy to help.”

She made a sound. “You just like staring at my ass.”

“It’s a really cute ass.”

“You’re such a perve, sometimes.”

“Takes one to know one, baby.”

FP made a sound of disgust as he fled to the ship bay doors. “I’m outta here.”

As FP made his retreat, Jughead kissed the top of her head. “In three weeks, you’re going to be in your 3rd trimester. Just 15 more weeks to go--14 if you deliver a week early. Won’t be long.”

“I’m gonna be ship bound the entire time. It’s gonna be tough, Jug. Tougher than gestational diabetes.”

He smiled into her hair. “I don’t know. Zero carbs sounds pretty tough to me.”

She laughed. “It’s not _zero_ carbs, just… Alice carbs. Jesus, what if mom finds out? Please tell dad to please not let mom manipulate him into telling her.”

Kind of a tall order, considering Alice had FP more figured out than Gladys ever did. “No promises.”

“Hold me,” she whimpered in wild dramatics.

He chuckled. “Always, babe. Always.”


	3. The Third

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took forever, but life, you know?

Jughead was a little worried. 

Just a little. 

He’d been working hard to curtail his tendencies to be overly protective, lest he fall back into the panic mode that surfaced during their Thwayle pickup and caused his whole family to get pissed with him.

He was able to unpack the overlying issues that drove his obsessions and paranoia, that in turn triggered his PTSD. He wrote down every worry he felt in his journal, and he discussed each one with his therapist, who helped him figure out the boundaries of his anxieties--where he was possibly overthinking things and where he could put his more reasonable worries into perspective. 

It was soothing to him that he could essentially put down the tangled mess that was in his brain and have someone like Doctor Flootsnoot help him unfurl it. 

So when he went to the good doctor and told him that he was worried that Betty was obsessing over her gestational diabetes, and Doctor Flootsnoot asked him what _else_ he was worried about, Jughead said, “A whole bunch of other stuff, but this is the most relevant.”

His answer of, “Jughead, when we talk about managing your worries and how you manifest them, I need you to remember that it doesn’t mean your feelings are invalid. What we’re doing is stepping back and figuring out how you can express them in positive, productive ways.”

It was a great way for the doctor to zero in on what _else_ was plaguing him. “I’m afraid to overstep. I’ve done it so many times. And I don’t want to tell Betty how to manage her own anxiety.”

“Of course you don’t, and you won’t. You’re telling her how you feel and what your concerns are. It may still cause some tension—nobody wants to be told that they’re causing anxiety in others—but stick to what you know, which means _your_ feelings. Strip away any judgement and prescription. Speak words of open dialogue. You are married and you want to work your feelings out as partners.”

He appreciated how his therapist didn’t just tell him everything was going to be okay, that it was possible things may tilt sideways before it got better.

It made him nervous, but it prepared him, too.

Betty’s gestational diabetes, it seemed, was impossible to control with diet. 

In spite of the considerable lack of high-carb food during meals, her blood sugar spiked. 

Her frustration was clear. Alice had practically raised Betty on a low-carb diet. She grew up on cutting carbs. That her body refused to play by the rules had her eyes tearing the same way her first trimester morning sickness had her hiding in the bathroom.

The visual was particularly poignant. At 27 weeks, her baby bump was completely visible, even through her jumpers. Her maternity clothes were coming out of their packaging and she was getting far more winded when she ran the treadmill in the simulation room.

He was afraid that her need to control her blood sugar was driving her to exercise harder and eat _less._

“Betty, Dr. Takyi said that gestational diabetes can’t always be controlled by diet. You’ll probably need insulin and that’ll give you better control. Eating less and exercising more sounds unhealthy in any condition anybody’s body is in,” he said, gently, as he handed her a freshly filled water bottle. 

Their tags beeped. Her heart rate was slightly more elevated than what was recommended, which instantly made her slow her pace down to a more leisurely stroll, much to Jughead’s relief. 

She sighed, taking the water bottle. She took a hefty swill and caught her breath. “The less insulin I have to take, the better. I don’t want to cause the bug hypoglycemia. I read up on it, Jug. The worst cases are heartbreaking. If the bug gets it for life, I will _never_ forgive myself.”

“The chances of that are low to nil. If you eat healthy meals, which I think we’ve been doing pretty well, what little insulin the doc will probably prescribe you will help a lot in stabilizing your blood sugar. It’s gonna be okay.”

She frowned and stopped her walking altogether. “I have one job, Juggie, and it’s to keep this baby healthy.”

Jughead was feeling a little unsettled by the sharp determination in her tone. “You’re doing spectacularly well at that. Dr. Takyi said so, and it’s not your _one_ job. You have several ‘jobs.’ You have to look out for yourself, too—physically _and_ mentally. You’re keeping this ship afloat, you’re working on your universal engine, you’re managing the cargo deliveries, not to mention the fact that Hotdog’s chosen you as JB’s proxy...”

Hotdog gave a whine in the corner in response to mention of his name in close proximity to Jellybean’s.

“You have a lot going on, Betts.“

“I have a couple more days before Dr. Takyi reassesses me. I can beat this thing—“

He shook his head. “It’s not about beating anything. It’s about being healthy, physically and mentally.”

“I just want to make sure I’m doing all I can, Jug.”

He wanted to wag his finger at her. _Kind of what I’m afraid of,_ but he didn’t know if that was constructive. He thought about all the times Betty unhealthily obsessed about things, and he remembered that it was never just about that _one_ thing. It was always something bigger. The obsession was just a means for her to stop thinking about the other things that bothered her. She was trying, in essence, to preoccupy herself “productively”, in the hopes that the looming anxieties would just pass by and go away. “Let’s go for a ride.”

She shot him a frown. “I need to finish this—“

“Just 30 minutes. I’m leaving on a mission in three days and I’m missing you and the bug already. I swear I’ll be inconsolable the first couple of nights I’ll be away.”

Of course that did it. Nothing pulled at her heartstrings more than that shared heartbreak of separation.

She hopped gracefully off the treadmill and threw her arms over his shoulders. “Stop. Okay. Let’s go for a ride.”

The Hitchcock was still his favorite means of transport when taking Betty on these spontaneous outings, and it had been a while since they flew through random space, finding the perfect spot to park, talk, then inevitably make out. 

As he hopped into the Hitchcock, Betty gave a mild roll of her eyes but didn’t complain. She took his offered hand and managed to get in with agility. 

He mugged an impressed nod. “Like a ballerina.”

“Wait ‘til I get to 35 weeks,” she grumbled as she settled on his lap. “They you’ll really see some acrobatics.” 

He chuckled and sealed the cockpit, flying them through space where they eventually settled on a view of a distant star system with a gently shimmering rainbow ring.

Betty was a pleasant weight against him, her head resting against the crook of his neck and shoulder. He had one arm draped across her thighs while he wedged his other against the cockpit’s side panel, enabling him to run his fingers lightly through her hair. 

“It looks like one ring from afar, but those are actually millions of rocks, refracting light as they move at hundreds of miles per hour, all in one direction,” Betty mused, her tone heavy with unsaid words.

It was almost as if she was telling him all about it already. 

He let them enjoy the view for several more minutes in silence. 

Just before he began speaking, he kissed the top of her head. “I remember you telling me that when you worry, you work, so that you don’t have to think about the thing that worries you. You called staying healthy a ‘job’ so...”

She sighed but sank deeper against him. 

He didn’t want to pressure her into telling him anything if she wasn’t ready, so he let his words sink in before he went on. “I’m going to miss you and the bug while I’m away, but I think I’ll be able to comm you most days.”

She tilted her chin up to look at him, her fingers flexing slightly against the rumples of his sweater. “We’ll miss you, too. Bug’s fluttering.”

He pressed his hand to her belly and felt the tiny patter of the baby against his hand. He smiled, kissing Betty’s upturned lips.

“I’m getting cabin fever, Jug,” she whispered, sighing. “I’m stuck on this ship—I couldn’t bounty hunt, I could barely step out for deliveries, shopping is contingent on the planet’s atmosphere, I miss JB, and now you’ll be gone—the first time you’ll be away from us both, and I’m worried. So worried. Like, I know you told me it’s going to be okay, that you’re just transporting rescues, but you’re flying a fighter craft, baby, and I just—“ Her gaze became liquid. “I felt this way before you left for Kestra Prime.”

He empathized with her anxiety--felt the tension on her shoulders. His gut clenched, knowing how difficult this must be for her. “Back when I was in the ESDC, I remember thinking how some of my crew were so lucky to have family waiting for them to come home, but I forgot to think about how it must feel for their family every time they got sent away. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault, and I’m guessing I’ll learn how to deal with it eventually, but for now it’s overwhelming. Hormones aren’t helping, either.”

He squeezed her arm. “You and the bug are the most important people in my life. I can find something else—“

She looked up abruptly, rumpling the collar of his henley. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You wanted this, because you like helping people and you’re an amazing pilot. This is just me and the bug sharing you with the universe. I don’t want you to find something else. I’m just telling you how I feel because we promised not to keep things from each other, but I don’t want you to quit it. I’ll hate myself if you do. This is you being your best self and it makes me so, so proud.”

Her words made him feel both soft and invincible at the same time. “This is so different from Kestra Prime. You’ll know exactly where I’ll be based and for how long. I can’t give you details about our escort missions, but there are people who are accountable for our whereabouts. As it is, I’ll be pretty far from the conflict. We’re picking up from away stations and we’ll be escorting to the next point. I won’t be the only one, either. I’ll have a team. All of us are experienced fighters--vets, and we’re basically protecting the rescues from space pirates and slave traders—almost always a bunch of thugs who have never gone up against trained ESDC pilots flying the most advanced hand-me-down war machines in the galaxy.”

She laughed at the term “hand-me-down”, but he knew she had a clear understanding of what that meant. The crafts weren’t the newest in the market—those went to the fighter pilots on active duty. Escorts got the older models, which in her practice, could be just as great as the new ones, given the proper maintenance. 

Her hopeful look spread relief through his chest. “Do you think I’ll be able to meet any one of the members of your team? Or maybe the groundsmen who can tell me all about those crafts and how safe they are...”

A soft chuckle escaped him. “Maybe. I’ll get one of them on comm. I’m their captain. They’ll sing show tunes for my wife if I order them to.”

She cast him a mildly scolding look but didn’t object, snuggling closer, which was a feat in their already tight space.

“I’ll comm as soon as I can,” he promised.

She nodded. “And I’ll keep myself busy, don’t worry.”

“I know you’ll keep yourself busy, but I want you to relax, too. The insulin will help with the blood sugar, I’m sure. I think you can go a little easy on yourself, yeah? I worry when you fixate.” He took her hand, running his thumb lightly across her palm. The skin wasn’t broken, but the slightly inflamed tinge on her skin was clear. She was digging her nails in.

Sighing, she threaded their fingers together. “I’m getting a little obsessed, I know.”

He didn’t want to make her feel criticized. “You’re doing so well. I don’t want you to get stressed.”

She cast him a sheepish grin. “Just be safe, okay? Don’t be a maverick.”

He laughed softly in her ear. “I thought you liked me reckless.”

She huffed. “Oh, my God. Where the heck did you get that idea? I am always the first to nag about safety. Don’t think for a minute your hot shot, top gun vibe overpowers my larger need for you to come home in one, sexy piece.”

Sometimes he did enjoy these rants. She was just riled up enough--not quite angry--that it turned him on. He tugged gently at the bottom of her lip with his thumb just before he kissed her. She hummed, and he felt her arms slipping over his shoulders to press herself against his chest. 

He could feel the bump of her belly against him and he smiled happily into their kiss, flicking his tongue against hers. 

She moaned, rolling her hips, barely rubbing because of their position, but the mere visual, as well as the sound of her voice, made his cock twitch in his pants. 

“Take me back to the Wyrm, Juggie.”

He wasn’t going to argue. He reactivated the navigation systems in the craft and started to drive home. 

*******************************

Betty’s baby bump pretty much ruled out a handful of sexual positions, at least for the next few months, but such trifles never disrupted their pleasures. It was just a playful hurdle that they had to get over, perhaps it even served as an enhancement to their experience. 

At the beginning, when Jughead first felt the baby belly pressing against his stomach, he panicked and clumsily removed himself, trying but failing to make the transition smooth enough for Betty not to notice, but she did notice, and her initial confusion at the abrupt change of mood had him fumbling to explain. 

He’d read up on this, how pregnant sex just meant a slight adjustment to fit his partner’s shifting anatomy, but going from raging desire to clinical explanations was uderstandably jarring. “The--the bug. I’m gonna squish-- _them_.”

He probably could’ve said it less awkwardly, but he hadn’t envisioned that this would be difficult to point out. 

Thankfully, Betty didn’t laugh at him and she was just worked up enough to shrug off his awkwardness. “We’re going to be fine, baby. Please just--” She had hitched her leg up against his shoulder, shifting on the bed. “Sideways.”

It took two seconds for Betty to figure out how they were going to maneuver baby bump sex. Jughead was just thankful one of them knew what they were doing. So _of course_ he fucked her sideways, and of course it was amazing.

They’d never been short of sexual positions to begin with, and her pregnancy didn’t rule out kink play, either. They still liked the handcuffs, and temperature play, and other various implements, but Jughead had asked her, nicely, if he could be the sub most if not all of the time. 

“I’m not comfortable playing dom right now,” was what he said. 

Consent was everything, so they came to an agreement, and if Betty had a raging desire to be the submissive, Jughead wanted clear guidelines on that, too. Neither had complaints, and they carried on, with a little more flexibility and with more creative care. 

*******************************

The day Jughead was set to leave on his first vet assignment, he woke Betty with the soft suction of his lips pressing kisses on her shoulder. 

All he could think was that two weeks without her would feel like an eternity, and that making love with her right before they separated just might make the next couple of weeks a little easier. 

She stirred when he made circles on her skin with his tongue, and when she reached behind her to bury her fingers in his hair, he slipped his hand beneath her shirt and gently cupped her breast beneath his palm.

Her skin was soft and warm, the beautiful mounds peaking into tight nipples between his fingers. The soft moan of his name from her lips made his cock throb with need. 

He had no idea why the mere prospect of two weeks felt like such a long time. They’d been separated for longer—over ten weeks when he was on Kestra Prime, twelve when she had to be with her family during Hal’s trial. Fourteen days should be a cakewalk, but he supposed forced and obliged separation forged a steelier endurance in them both. The next couple of weeks was a choice. A practical decision. This was a side-gig. 

The sleepy arch of her back as she pressed and rocked her ass against his growing erection made him groan. She knew just how to rub herself against him and he was going to miss that tantalizing responsiveness for fourteen days.

“I’m gonna miss you, baby,” he whispered, rocking back. The bump of his dick strained against the soft material of his boxer briefs.

Her hands left his hair, and he could feel her breathing pick up in her chest. The same hands that were pulling at his strands were now scrambling to push off her panties, and then his briefs, with practiced efficiency.

When his cock felt skin, it was all smooth bumps and dips. His hunger for her grew almost unbearable, and his mouth sought hers. He tilted her chin up so he could cup his lips over hers, their tongues tangling as his hands went from the lush curves of her swollen breasts to the wet heat between her legs.

Her thighs parted for him as his fingers teased the bundle of nerves at her apex and he dipped his fingers between her folds.

She moaned at his touch and he whispered soft praises amidst his smug confidence. 

He moved his hips to a slow rhythm, sliding his dick smoothly through the valley of her ass cheeks. 

“You’re so ready for me, baby,” he said. She nodded helplessly, staring up at him with her disarming darkened eyes. He could see the slightest hint of green ringing her iris, but they were so blown with lust that color was almost a memory. He tugged gently at her bottom lip with his teeth as he slipped two fingers into her and pressed figures against her clit with his thumb.

Her eyes rolled closed, gasping as she moved her hips to meet the movement of his hand. 

He shifted to brace her thigh.

“Don’t stop,” she whined.

Chuckling, he nibbled at her ear. “One second, baby.” He grasped her thigh to coax her knee higher. 

She knew what he needed and she tilted her hips back in the right angle. He slid into her easily, their combined moans followed by the sensual rhythm of their hips.

“Better?” he teased.

She made a sound of approval, bracing herself against the bed with one hand as her body met his thrusts. 

The lazy cadence began to pick up speed and Betty’s cries were taking on that urgent tone. It fired his desire and the build up in the pit of his stomach was nearly impossible to hold back. 

He felt her come and it was almost too much to bear. He listened to her impassioned cries before he spilled into her, the explosions of ecstasy overcoming him, until there was nothing but the pleasurable aftershocks and the whining between his ears.

When they both lay panting in bed, their senses returning, Betty turned to him and kissed him. The desperate need had passed, fires lowered to a simmer.

“It’s only a couple of weeks,” Betty murmured, her warm breath and soft lips tickling the skin of his throat. “You’ll come back to us in one piece, right?”

He smiled, running his fingers lightly through her hair. There were no certainties out there in the field, no matter how far away they were from conflict, but the numbers for veteran escorts were good. “Most likely. No one from the vet division’s gotten seriously hurt doing this, yet. I also probably have the biggest bone to pick with slave traders, out of that division. Those crooks have no idea what they’re in for.”

She looked amused by his rare show of bravado. He’d told her that he was a cockier pilot in the past and while she acknowledged that she believed him, she also probably knew that captivity had a way of humbling the worst of them. She knew what he’d been through and what it had taken to win back what he’d lost. 

The soft smile she cast sharpened to a grin. “Give ‘em hell, cowboy.”

*******************************

There was still secrecy around the missions, which was about par for the course, but Jughead had more leeway to communicate outside of base. The lines were still secure, and calls still had to be scheduled, but for the most part, it was like being away at camp where electronic devices were mostly restricted. 

He had a call with Betty in about an hour and he missed her fiercely the last three days since they talked. He’d been in flight and thankfully their escort missions had been fairly quiet. They encountered some space pirates along the route of one of them, but a warning shot had been enough to deter any kind of interference. 

Now he was on base and all he could think of was that he was going to get to see Betty again, if remotely. He was putting on a fresh shirt in the locker rooms when the overhead speaker said, “Captain Jones, report to Comm Bay. You’ve been hailed.”

He wasn’t expecting any calls from outside. Betty, FP, JB, and Gladys had the security clearance to access his personal comm, so none of them would have to be patched through Comm Bay, unless they were using someone else’s comm device, which would be a little worrying.

Could it be a doctor? Emergency services?

He couldn’t even bear to think about it, but the dispatcher sounded calm, with no urgency in his voice. Any medical emergency would’ve been communicated to the dispatcher and the dispatcher would’ve said it was an emergency.

Besides, the nanobots would’ve sounded the alarm in his tag if anything were amiss.

Jughead calmed the anxiety before it even broke the surface of his emotions.

As he passed the dispatcher’s station, Cedric, the dispatcher, cast him a look of warning, though he said nothing except, “Station 3, Jones.”

Jughead took his station, activated the privacy settings of his cube, and answered the hail.

Veronica’s face popped up on-screen. He hadn’t expected her in the least.

Her bright smiled withered to a frown. “Well, don’t look so shocked.”

How did she even know he was out on a mission? How did Veronica know to contact him here? Betty never would have told Veronica any of those details. She knew what had to be kept secret. 

“Who told you I was here?” he demanded.

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Relax, fly boy. You’ll be surprised at how I can charm my way to information like that. Anyway, I still don’t know where you are. I got patched through to someone, and then passed off to someone and so on and so forth. Now an hour later, here I am. They probably know shit about me that I don’t know, at this point. You are a hard man to catch.”

He frowned. “How did you even know to start looking for me in this network?”

“Oh, please. Betty said nothing, but I can tell by the wistful, vacant looks that you’re not on the Wyrm. It wasn’t exactly what she looked like when you were MIA, because she looked like a wreck then, but there’s just enough sprinkling of that misery. She’s droopy and sulky and sometimes cranky. I haven’t seen her like that in months. So in conclusion, you’re away for some reason.”

Jughead couldn’t quite imagine Betty sulking up a storm while he was away, but this was Veronica, who was not only attuned to Betty’s many nuances, but apparently had a nose for sniffing out that things weren’t quite right, which basically led to things like outing Archie’s cheating ass or finding Jughead, who was supposedly on a semi-secret mission.

Best not to question her methods. “Well, what’s so important that you had to access your sources to find me?”

“Well, see, JB is apparently indisposed and while I have a raging crush on your super hot dad, I recognize that he isn’t exactly the most dependable event organizer in the Jones family, so you’re it.”

Jughead pretended he didn’t just hear Veronica reference FP the way she did. “Event organizer? Betty is a fucking amazing event--”

“The event’s for her, you numbskull. And I want it to be a surprise. Gladys would’ve been great, but she isn’t on the ship.”

“Well, neither am I at the moment, so--”

She clapped her hands. _“Focus,_ fly boy. I want you to focus. On my words.”

Jughead shifted on his seat, tapping his foot as he took a deep, drawn out breath. “What are we talking about again?”

“Her baby shower, Jughead. Your wife is having a baby, or didn’t you notice?”

Jughead was about to blurt out that his singular focus in the last several months had been Betty and the baby, but he noted the slight tilt of Veronica’s lip and the glint in her eyes. She was teasing. He supposed he’d been pretty sulky, himself. 

Betty would appreciate a baby shower, of course. This was their first child and all the ritual celebrations applied. “I can’t talk long, V, but if you send me the details via written mail—“

“Excuse me, did you just say _written mail?”_

He loved this part, telling people that they just can’t email him. “Well, you can _type_ it and print it out, and—“

“Why is this happening at this day and age?”

“Security purposes. There’s a digital service, actually—most if not all package delivery services have them. Just look for their Servicemen Communications options. You type the letter out like an email, put in my Service ID, and they’ll print it out for you and deliver the message to me via regular mail. I’ll get the message the next couple of days.”

Veronica made a sound of frustration. “Couple of—oh fer fuck’s— _fine_ , but just so you understand, this shower needs to happen soon. I would appreciate it if you encourage her to start up a baby registry. The suggestion has to come from you. Got it?”

“I got it.”

The comm link began to issue a warning. That they had one minute left.

She nodded. “Be careful out there, Fly Boy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t—er, on second thought…”

Jughead laughed in spite of himself. “Thanks, V. Betty and I are lucky to have you.”

She blew him a kiss before signing off.

************

Jughead _was_ back at the Wyrm before they knew it, and it would be another three weeks before his next assignment. 

These short bursts were somewhat ideal, given that he was getting paid decently for a relatively short amount of work. And in between jobs, he could, it seems, help arrange baby showers.

Most of his baby shower duties consisted of him distracting Betty from anything that might make her cotton on to the surprise—an easy task as of yet, considering it just meant diffusing the littlest cause for suspicion. He wasn’t fussed by it. Even the date he had to take Betty to so that Veronica could set up in the ship didn’t faze him. He was looking forward to it, in fact, because it was still a real date that just happened to be useful for stealthily putting up banners and balloons. 

What preoccupied his thoughts at the moment was Jellybean and her work with the GBI. 

They received word that Jellybean would be home soon, and Jughead did cling to that promise. He ignored the nagging thought in his brain—that Jellybean may actually like working at the agency. She was young and brilliant. He couldn’t blame her if she wanted something more fresh and challenging, and he could imagine that the breadth of cases GBI would have to offer her would be as vast and varied as the planets of the galaxy. 

The pay was one thing—it was a given that the GBI could pay her much more than the Wyrm can, but Jellybean didn’t care about money. Never did. She would be in it for the rush. The Wyrm was the Sheriff’s office at the podunk town, the GBI was Mission Impossible. 

It essentially meant that Jellybean may elect to live her own life—a possibility that he never seriously thought she’d consider before. It made his heart ache, if he were being completely honest. He’d had visions of Jellybean being forever accessible to their child. The aunt who knew all the cool things. Now there may be long stretches of time without her in their lives. It made him sad and it made him nervous, because even Jellybean being the street-smart kid he knew her to be, she was still his much-younger baby sister. He used to carry her on his hip, for goodness sake. Sending her off now to live her own life would probably still feel like tossing his toddler sister into the perils of an asteroid field.

So there was that.

On top of that, Jughead was feeling the pressure as captain of the Wyrm—the shadow of restaffing was giving him Hyperion-sized anxiety. 

He would have to employ a pilot, and the thought of trusting someone else with the lives of his family kept him awake at night. 

All these concerns were running through his head, so he somewhat relished the more mundane intricacies of surprise-planning.

One of the more interesting outcomes of this party was Chic asking if he could stay on the Wyrm the week of the party.

“I don’t think I could stand to be with both mom and Polly in a relatively small ship.”

Jughead shot him a pointed look. “Chic, we have one bathroom. That runs out of hot water.”

“I know that, and I’ll deal with it for a week. Have you forgotten that I camped outside in the mountains of Tibet for a couple of weeks for my spiritual journey?”

Jughead rolled his eyes but couldn’t begrudge Chic his desire to be as far away from his overbearing mother and know-it-all sister as he could. “Fine, but I don’t want to hear any complaints about the ship. You’ll hurt Betty’s feelings if you trash the Wyrm in any way.”

“Got it. _Namaste_ , brother. I owe you one.”

Polly, in her infinite ability to be appropriate, sent Jughead an appointment invite, which made him grumble and contact her _immediately._

“What is it, Polly?” 

She looked flustered, at first. “We have an appointment.”

“I’m sorry for the unexpected comm. Are you busy?”

“Actually, no…”

“Good! Neither am I. What’s up?

This was clearly a new concept to her: spontaneous communication. “I—well I—I’m not prepared—“

“Polly, I’m your brother-in-law, not the Board of Directors. You need to take it easy.”

Her frown was born of months of being in charge and having things in complete control. That he wasn’t acting like a corporate manager was probably throwing her off.

“I—well, this feels awkward, honestly, but Zeke and I were wondering if we could stay at the Wy—“

“Polly, you know I love you and the kids, but you do know we have one bathroom, right? And that the only unoccupied rooms in the ship have singles and bunks. Also, Chic specifically asked to be on the Wyrm to—well, put distance, and he asked first so…”

Polly scowled. “Distance? From me? How can he say that? I was there for him everytime he walked out if rehab!”

Jughead shrugged, throwing her a sheepish look. “I’m sure he remembers that?”

Polly sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I suppose I never let him forget it.”

He didn’t argue the point, but he liked Polly. She had a good heart. “It’s probably _mom_ that he’s trying to get away from, Polly. Chic wears his heart on his sleeve. He loves his sisters and the twins.”

Polly shot him a lopsided smile with only a hint of that wry, Cooper humor.

As dysfunctional as Betty’s siblings are, he genuinely liked them. He definitely bonded with Chic, for one, and he felt that Polly had fully accepted him if only because the twins seemed to like him. It warmed his usually sardonic heart that Polly felt comfortable enough to ask to be on the Wyrm, and he cared for her enough to tell her that the Wyrm was not the place for her.

“Why do you want to give up your fancy, luxurious ship, anyway?” Jughead asked. “I don’t mind swapping ships for a day, if you like.” He paused for a second. “Don’t tell Betty I said that.”

Polly laughed, softly. “I won’t. And it’s not my luxurious ship. It’s mother’s luxurious ship. I insisted on paying for our accommodations, but you know mom…”

Of course. Everybody knew Alice. 

“I can tell you right now that mom is an easier pill to swallow than the Wyrm’s Spartan accommodations.”

“That’s debatable, and the reason you can say that is because you are somehow capable of neutralizing her.”

Jughead paused to think about that and realized that she wasn’t wrong. Alice’s venom lost its potency when he was around.

Polly seemed amused that he was only now realizing it. “Now did you get pointers from Gladys, or did Gladys get pointers from _you?”_

That was completely unexpected. “Did what who from?”

“You and your mom—both of you have a handle on mother.”

He supposed Gladys did have that knack, too, if their Peshwa getaway all those months ago was any indication. 

Polly’s eyes brightened with inspiration. “I should invite Gladys to fly with us!”

“Well, there’s an idea.” Though Jughead thought it baffling that Polly seemed to consider this a foolproof solution. “I suppose if my mom brought along enough weed.”

Polly laughed. “Oh, don’t be silly, Jughead. They get along just fine without weed.”

Jughead was experiencing a disconnect. “Since when?”

“Since forever. They brunch and shop and hang out all the time. I should’ve thought of Gladys from the beginning! Now I feel stupid.”

They ended their comm after that, with Polly glad that she seemed to have found a solution, but Jughead thought about that long after he and Polly said their goodbyes on the comm. 

****************

He itched to talk to Betty about this revelation but he was afraid Betty would suss out that he was having secret conversations with her siblings and ruin the surprise. Veronica would strangle him in his sleep.

So he went to FP, asking him if he knew Gladys and Alice were hanging out. A lot.

FP had looked at him askance. “Boy, I ain’t sticking my nose in that. Believe me, I tried and your mother dredged up things that drove me to drink in the first place.”

Now Jughead was concerned and he wasn’t sure why, so he went to the source—Gladys.

When he asked his mother what the hell was going on, Gladys wasn’t as venomous as FP made it appear she would be. 

She eyed him intently for a few seconds before replying, “Alice and I like each other’s company, believe it or not. She doesn’t bullshit me and I don’t bullshit her—just the way we like things. Is it a crime to hang out with the in-laws?”

“What? No. I’m just really curious about how it works out. I guess you like hanging out, and that’s cool. I’m just—Alice is so…”

“What?”

“And you’re so…”

Gladys rolled her eyes. “Just spit it out, Junior. What seems to be the problem?”

Jughead didn’t know what his problem was. It didn’t feel like a problem, really. It just felt like there was something he was missing in all this. “I don’t know, ma. Maybe it’s just—you and I have been talking, right? I let you in, you let me in—it’s a give and take. This is how it works, and if you’ve been spending time with Alice, it just sounds like the sort of thing you could’ve been telling me about. Like, I’m pretty sure Betty would’ve liked the idea that our mothers are turning out to be good friends—“

Gladys flinched so distinctly that Jughead saw it.

“What? What did I say?”

“Nothing, Junior. And you’re right. It’s something I could’ve told you, but I didn’t, and that was a conscious choice. I’m sorry. I’m still figuring out this opening up thing, you know? You and I, we keep things close to our chest.”

Jughead understood that on a deeply personal level—keeping things to himself, but he also learned from being with Betty that there are people you can share your truths with who can lighten the burden of it. 

He thought that Gladys had achieved some form of understanding of this when she began opening up to Jughead about the things she did when she left him. 

_“I was a stripper, Junior. And I was pretty successful at it. When I got up on that stage, men threw their money at me like confetti. I was legendary.”_

Jughead didn’t find anything reprehensible about the job, in all honesty _._ He could see the pride in her eyes as she told him how she racked in the tips doing it, but he also understood that his 16-year old self might have been cautiously accepting of the job, knowing that his mother stripped for a living. He would’ve been happy for her, but he might not have told his friends for fear of them judging her. He wasn’t strong enough at the time to withstand peer pressure.

Nonetheless, he would’ve liked to have been there for Gladys. _“Ah, mom. I wouldn’t have cared what you did to earn a living. It’s honest work. You liked it, it sounds like,”_ he had said.

Gladys had seemed amused. _“I didn’t know it at the time, and like I said—that’s my fault. We probably could’ve worked something out, but it went a different direction once the money started piling up. I invested in less savory, more illegal things. I’d rather not go into details, but know that for a while, no one dared to mess with me. I was a ruthless bitch. I did things I wasn’t so proud of—criminal things. It just got crazy, that’s all. I’m glad your sister and I got out of it in one piece.”_

They’d been more honest to each other since, so having her slide back this way made him suspicious and he couldn’t help but call her out on it. With Gladys, he realized, she was more likely to retreat quietly into her secrets if she could get away with it.

“You’re hiding something, mom. What is it?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Ah, Junior. I don’t know if you’re ready for it.”

Jughead was beginning to feel alarmed. “What? What is—you aren’t dying, are you? Because that would be fucked up of dad not to tell—“

“What? No!”

“Is Alice? Oh, my God—“

“ _No!_ For fuck’s sake, nobody’s dying!”

Jughead felt a great degree of relief. He didn’t think he could deliver that sort of news to Betty in her condition. “Okay, great. Then it couldn’t be that bad.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so, Junior.”

When Gladys didn’t go on, Jughead frowned. “Just spit it out ma. My father-in-law tried to kill me and you said you once took someone’s eye out with a hunting knife. What else could possibly shock me?”

Gladys’ upside down smile conveyed how impressed she was, or challenged. He didn’t know. “Well, if you put it that way--Alice and I do like to hang out together, and we do really enjoy each other’s company, and, you know.“ 

Jughead wasn’t sure if there was a blank he was expected to fill. “I don’t.”

She shrugged, as if what she was about to say was meant to be a casual statement. “We got intimate a couple of times. Just happened, but we mostly just hang out.”

There was a momentary pause as Jughead absorbed exactly what Gladys said. _“What?”_

********************

His feelings on the matter were, at best, complicated. 

This was nowhere near Hal wanting to murder him or his mother becoming a mini-mob boss. In fact, it wasn’t even in the same dimension of that. This was just unlikely news that he didn’t know quite what to do with.

His birth mother and mother-in-law were “sort of” friends with benefits. 

What did that even mean? Is that something they did with other people? And yet they weren’t doing anything like that with anyone else, so that told Jughead they were exclusively seeing one another, and yet they refused to label it as such. 

Furthermore, he had to Google that shit to figure out what that did to the dynamics of a family. 

He recalled being annoyed with his father about flirting with Alice, and part of that had to do with Alice being married and unavailable at the time, but a larger part of it had to do with the fact that she was Betty’s mom. Like, did that screw up _their_ relationship—Betty and his—legally, because their respective parents were hanky-pankying with one another?

Now here they were.

Jughead had been cockblocking the wrong parent. Or maybe Alice was just that irresistible.

He couldn’t tell Betty just yet, since Gladys had made him swear. 

It hadn’t been an easy promise to extract from him.

He remembered telling Gladys, “What part about _she’s my wife_ don’t you get? I tell her everything. Everything, ma. How long do you expect me to keep this from Betty?”

“Just give Alice time to figure this out. We weren’t planning on outing ourselves. We could’ve just been two broads bonding over their married kids forever. We’re happy with that arrangement. Certainly less _drama.”_

He got that a revelation like this could stir the pot, but if not for the strange family dynamics, he and Betty didn’t generally have a problem with two women dating. Just that--it’s _both their mothers._

The truth was, he hadn’t quite absorbed it yet himself, just that this discussion needed to be had, so he had to wing it. He was a Jones, so at least in that, he knew he was capable. 

“I’ll give you three days,” Jughead said through gritted teeth. “Three days. You tell Mama Cooper--”

“It’s _Smith,_ and--” Gladys looked over her shoulder at someone else. “He wants you to tell Betty in three days. Think you can handle that, Alice?”

Jughead couldn’t believe it. “She’s _there?”_

Alice nudged her face into the screen. “For goodness sake, Forsythe. Why do Gladys and I have to get dragged into yours and Betty’s Truth Pact? So it got a bit heavy between Gladys and I couple of times--no big deal. Leave us alone.”

“Truth Pact?” It was times like these that Jughead realized why their parents sucked at their respective marriages. “It’s called having a healthy relationship with your spouse, but I shouldn’t expect either of you to know that.”

Gladys hooted, no doubt enjoying the sass.

Alice tossed him a withering look. “Well, you don’t _have_ to tell Betty everything.”

Jughead shouldn’t have been surprised with that nugget of wisdom, either. “What is wrong with you? You’re her mother and she’s my _wife.”_

He couldn’t believe he had to repeat himself. Not like Alice wasn’t at the wedding.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You mean to tell me that you would tell Betty everything? Would you tell her she’s _fat?”_

Jughead lips pursed to a line. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said, the most important one being your implication that gaining weight somehow reduces her worth. Also, she’s in her third trimester, for God’s sake. She’s supposed to gain weight so you need to keep your fat shaming to yourself, _mother.”_

Alice scoffed. “Have you been hanging around Polly a lot? I could have sworn you were channelling her just now.”

Jughead stopped to think about it in spite of himself.

Gladys cackled. “You’re way too hard on your daughters, Alice.”

“Please. They’re amazing because of me.”

Gladys draped an arm over Alice’s shoulder. “I’m going to keep my opinions about that to myself.”

“Oh-ho! When did you start holding back?”

Jughead scowled. “Stop changing the subject, you two. Either you tell Betty what’s going on or I will. Your choice.”

*******************

Jughead thought his own reaction heroically restrained. If this had been FP and Alice, he would’ve dragged his father into the other room and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, but for one, he would never treat his mother like that, and two, he was at a disadvantage being on the other side of the universe.

But he supposed distance was a good thing given his reactive nature. His inability to say or do anything productive in this matter allowed him some time to absorb the shock.

He didn’t really approve of Alice and Gladys screwing up their whole family dynamic, and he almost resented them both for it, but at the end of the day, if they enjoy each other’s company that much—Gladys was partially right. They could’ve just gone on and kept this secret and no one would be the wiser.

He was the one who stuck his big fat nose into this.

Then again, could they have kept it lowkey? Could they have, really? When he and Betty first started sneaking around the ship, it wasn’t that FP actually caught them in flagrante delicto. FP had said he may have heard a couple of suspect sounds, which he brushed off easily, but it was the way they _looked at each other_ that gave it away. It was the light touches and the body language that made FP realize that his son and his mechanic were getting it on. 

It still gave Jughead a tingly feeling, that so early on, they could not keep away from one another, even when he thought he had mastered guarding his feelings.

The same would be true for Alice and Gladys. If they kept on, then at some point, someone was going to notice. 

How the hell did this happen, anyway? Did anything really happen in Peshwa? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And did his mother always go both ways? Not that it really mattered, but it did highlight the fact that there was still so much to learn about her.

*****************

When Alice told Betty, Jughead was in the bridge, planning their next bounty. It was the day before the baby shower and so far, she hadn’t a clue that anything was going down.

In truth, this revelation was either perfect timing or the worst timing ever.

Betty waddled into the bridge, Hotdog hoofing in after her. She was the most adorable she’d ever been at thirty-five weeks, with her maternity jumper, striped t-shirt, her hair in pigtails, and a grease stain on her cheek. “Did you know about this?” 

She didn’t sound pleased and he expected this. 

“Yeah, but Alice wanted to tell you herself. It took longer than I expected, but she got to it, finally. Are you okay?”

She opened her mouth, poised to go on a tirade by the look of her shoulders, but she deflated, sighing as she carefully began to lower herself on the Captain’s chair.

Jughead casually held his hand out so she could use it for support. Sitting and standing had ceased to be a graceful endeavor for her, but it never stopped being cute.

She sank into the seat, looking up at him with her brows knotted and lips pursed. “Like, this can’t make us step siblings, can it?”

Just like Betty to go to the heart of it. She was obviously still in shock, whereas he has had time to Google shit. “We’re overaged, for one, so we can’t be dependents of them. It could get a little weird if they decide to marry, but that doesn’t seem to be in any of their plans. At any rate, neither of them are going to adopt us and—it’s just really a weird arrangement that hardly impacts anybody.”

“Does dad know?”

Jughead shrugged. “I haven’t told him and I know they haven’t told him, but I think he suspects. He’s not exactly going to judge considering he probably tried to sleep with Alice—God, my parents and your mom…”

Betty started to giggle and he rolled his eyes. 

“I’m glad you think this is funny.”

She didn’t stop, snorting a couple of times in an effort to control herself. “I just—it’s hilarious, when you think about it. Dad was all like, _oh, Alice and Gladys are going to fight over me!_ And they’re both like, _fuck, no.”_

This made her laugh louder and he had to admit, when she put it that way, it was kind of funny. 

She leaned back on her seat and sighed, grinning as she rubbed her belly. “God, this family is so extra. Chic and Polly are gonna freak, and Polly will be all, _‘Make sure Gladys signs a pre-nup!’_ because, you know, she’s Polly.”

Jughead leaned back against the dashboard, arms and ankles crossed. He smirked. “Did she tell you that when we got engaged?”

She gave him a sheepish look. “Of course she did. But it took two seconds for me to shut her down. You know I’m all in, baby. And if, God forbid, we go our separate ways, I think you deserve half the fortune, anyway. You’re so good to me.”

“Stop,” he said, kneeling on the floor by her feet. He loved her for saying it but he couldn’t bear for her to go on. “When your dad offered me money to leave you, all I could think was that there were only two things that could keep me away from you—if you told me to go away and if I met an untimely death.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair and her eyes watered. “Jeez, Jones. Don’t say stuff like that. You know how I’m made of nothing but baby and tears these days.” She wiped her eyes. “You got declared MIA after that, remember?”

He rubbed her knee tenderly. “Sorry. Yeah. It’s my truth, though.”

She nodded, planting a kiss on his lips. “I know.”

“So are you gonna tell your brother and sister?” he asked, running his palm against her baby bump. 

The corner of her lip twitched. “I told mom she should tell them. I am too pregnant to deal with that emotional roller coaster. I am _so_ ready for this baby.”

He chuckled. “Four more weeks.”

“I’m excited,” she breathed, but he could tell from the way her fingers flexed and the way she bit her lip that she was nervous, too, and he couldn’t blame her. He had his own anxieties about taking care of their baby. 

Would he know how to hold a newborn? Would he know the right amount of snug when swaddling? Would the baby get a rash from diaper changing? Would they be able to tell if something was wrong? 

There were a million hazards in space, the least of which had to do with him being away on missions while Betty cared for their infant alone.

“A little nervous,” she added, softly. “I’m not scared when I know you’re around, Jug. We’ve weathered so many things together that I’m sure we can figure out taking care of a baby together, but I know I’ll panic when you’re not here.”

He made a quiet sound, waving away her worries. “You’re a genius scientist. You can figure things out better than anyone, with or without me.”

Her smile of appreciation was everything.

She settled back on the Captain’s seat and told him to get back to work. She was going to sit there for a while to enjoy the view of space.

He felt settled. Better. Everything was going to be perfect.

*******************

Everyone made it to the baby shower. Even JB, and when Betty walked into the common room from ship bay, the shouts of surprise and the inordinate amount of balloons had Betty smiling and crying all at once.

Many of those attending hadn’t seen her in months and it was nice to have everyone in the same room again, even if one of them included Malachi, but there was something about baby showers that made even the most toughened bounty hunters soft and silly. 

Veronica and Toni presided, leading the ceremonies and the games, making sure the non-alcoholic drinks were getting properly served, and choreographing the gift opening.

“I’ll clean up the wrappers as they come and you write the what and from whom on the thank you cards,” Veronica told Toni in an efficient tone. “Jughead, be sure to read what’s on the cards out loud before you open the gifts so that Toni could take note.”

Jughead could only do what he was told, honestly.

In spite of all the organization and coordination, everyone seemed to be having fun, and Betty was so obviously happy that Jughead could only be grateful for Veronica and Toni’s efforts. 

Gladys, Alice, and FP hadn’t thrown one sarcastic line at one another and Chic had managed to keep his wisecracks rated-PG. The twins were behaving, too, but that was probably because they were given free reign to play in the big boxes some of the gifts came in. 

Everyone was more relaxed by the time the food was served, and it was the time they needed to sit and talk to friends they hadn’t seen in months. 

Given permission to feel the baby bump moving in Betty’s belly, Malachi seemed endlessly fascinated by the phenomenon. His jaw dropped at the feel of the baby against his palm and when Malachi looked up at Betty, as if to confirm if this was real, he said, “I only felt him for a few seconds, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

Although Jughead appreciated the sentiment, it was Malachi, and he couldn’t just let anything Malachi say pass without comment. “We don’t know the bug’s gender yet.”

“There’s a pool going,” Sweet Pea said, taking out a tablet. “You can bet on gender, date of birth, weight, or height--or combo it if you feel lucky. Want in?”

Malachi was already reaching into his pocket. “Hell, yes.”

Jughead exchanged eye rolls with Betty.

When Jellybean came over, Hotdog was firmly preoccupied between all the guests who were petting him and the twins who were demanding his presence at the boxes.

“We’ve missed you, JB,” Betty said, making space for her sister-in-law on the couch. 

Jellybean plopped on the space beside her. “I’m glad to see nothing had blown up on this ship while I was away.”

Jughead snorted, but he wasn’t going to let her think they were fine without her. Nothing catastrophic had happened, but bounties were considerably harder to bag without Jellybean’s digital shortcuts. “Bounties take twice as long to catch, honestly. You might have also heard I’ve taken a second job.”

Jellybean made a face at him and Betty waved his words away. “Oh, don’t mind his complaining. He just misses you. Tell us all about your stint at the GBI--or not. Are you allowed?”

“So long as I don’t go into specifics, yeah. They basically make me hack into new systems everyday. I can’t believe they’re paying me for it, either, but whatever. I don’t ask many questions.”

She tried to sound nonchalant, but Jughead could see the glint of excitement in Jellybean’s eyes. She liked this work and it gave him anxiety, even if he was happy for Jellybean for finding something outside of this family to define her. 

At some point in the evening, Jughead asked Jellybean to accompany him to the bridge. 

Jellybean didn’t say anything as she followed him, but he could feel her looking at him with barely veiled suspicion, and sure enough, when they settled in the bridge she asked him if she was in trouble. 

Jughead settled into Betty’s usual station, the sounds of the party filtering faintly through the speakers. The lights of the galaxy floated by, keeping the otherwise dark bridge alight. “Why would you say that? I just want to talk to my sister, that’s all.”

She didn’t comment, and he didn’t blame her. Neither of them were talkers, but to their credit, their interactions were always honest, and were it not for the GBI taking Jellybean away--frequent. They never hesitated to tell each other, sometimes loudly, if one or the other was being an asshole. Theirs was a relatively healthy relationship, give or take the occasional enabling of one another to do illegal things. 

“Betty and the bug look great,” Jellybean said, as if to take up this concept of a sit-down and trying it on. “Bug’s cooking good and Betty’s super cute. I think it’s gonna be a girl.”

Jughead eyed her for several seconds. “You didn’t hack into her medical records and find that out, did you? Because _we_ don’t know the gender, but the doctor does--”

Jellybean rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t hack that information. I am guessing just like all those assholes in the pool. I will hack the universe, but family is sacred. Know what I mean?”

He did. He valued Jellybean’s loyalty to her family, but he didn’t want it to limit her options, either. 

“You like it at the GBI, eh?” Jughead asked, feeling the soft vibration of the baby monitoring system on his wrist. Betty has had periodic Braxton Hicks contractions, but they were so far apart that they were hardly a concern. 

Jellybean shrugged. “It’s fine. Pay’s great, I guess. Didn’t expect they would, honestly. It was my program that made them ask for my help in the first place. I woulda done it for free, but--you know, labor laws and all.”

Many times, Jughead had thought about how he’d had his time outside of this family, about having found his own way early on, so that being defined by _this_ phase in his life didn’t make him feel incomplete. 

He didn’t know if Jellybean felt trapped. From what he’d cobbled together of her life, it always sounded like she was bailing one of the Joneses out, whether it was sticking it out for Gladys, getting FP out of jail, or finding where in the universe Jughead was. 

Perhaps she needed a change, if only to figure out what kind of life she really wanted. As much as he wanted her to stay, he didn’t want her to feel unfulfilled.

“So is that operation complete?” Jughead asked. “Are they giving you other work?”

Jellybean cast him a lopsided look. “We’re wrapping up that operation. I should be headed home in another couple of weeks and that’s that, but yeah, they’ve been giving me side projects while I’m there.”

He figured. “They offering you a job, squirt?”

He could see her shoulders stiffening and he grew even more anxious, but he didn’t want to seem like he wanted her to say one thing or the other. 

He could tell her that he just needed to know, so that he could start looking for a new IT specialist, but that would be disingenuous. What he wanted for her was to be happy, and there was no shame in acting like a big brother. 

“JB, it’s alright if they did,” he added, gently. “If it’s what you want to do, we’ll all be happy for you, I promise.”

Jellybean’s frown was deep. “You trying to get rid of me, jerk?”

He sighed. “Imp, of course not. We want you to stay with us, and not just because you can hack your way into any system. We’re a family. We’d love you to be around while the bug grows up. I like the idea that we, the Joneses, worked our way back to being this strong unit. Betty loves the idea that four adults and a dog will be looking after our kid. Your hacking--that’s just extra. But I understand if you feel like you need to get out there and explore on your own.”

Jellybean sighed and slumped in her seat. “I was offered a job, of course. They offered me more money than I can ever hope to be offered, legally. And Agent Munroe--he was gonna be my boss. He’s a great guy and I don’t mind working for him at all.”

Jughead nodded, saying nothing even as he felt his heart beginning to break. 

“But it was never about the money,” Jellybean continued. “You think I haven’t been around? I’ve spent most of my life trying to find a family in the farthest reaches of the cyber galaxy. I’ve gone to places the rest of you can only dream of. Sure, most of it was virtual, but my brain is wired different from yours, or Betty’s, or everyone I know. I live in my head. Actual human interaction is my hell. The only time I’ve ever felt happy to be with anyone is when it’s with you guys. I’ve searched far and wide for what you and I lost at the beginning, Jug, but we found each other again and it’s all I’ve ever wanted. _This_ family is all that matters to me, and it’s not because of some twisted sense of loyalty. You are the people I would die for, so quit trying to convince me to take their job offer.”

He laughed, more in surprise. “I’m not!”

She shot him a furious glare. “Because if Munroe put you up to this--”

“Absolutely not. The last time I spoke to the guy was when they came over here to pick you up.”

“Ya sure?”

“Positive!”

Jellybean stood, smoothing down her shirt and jeans. “Great. I’m sticking around and you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Jughead smiled to himself as she left the bridge, thinking that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

******************

He was half-asleep in his bunk bed, the joys and dramas of the baby shower two weeks behind him, when the maternity monitor began to signal contractions more frequently than Braxton Hicks. 

Jughead got up from bed fifteen minutes later, flipping on his light to take a closer look at the readings. It had to have been her third contraction within the last two hours. 

His co-captain from the other division moaned from his bed. “Turn off your light, Jones. Some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

An inexplicable surge or panic overcame him. “I think my wife’s gonna have a baby,” he blurted, hearing yet another beep for a new contraction. 

His bunk mate said nothing for a couple of seconds, perhaps absorbing what Jughead had just said. “Well, _shit, Jones.”_ He pushed himself out of bed, ruffling his shorn hair. “What are you still here for? You better start heading back.”

“Yeah, but will they allow--”

“This is the vet division. We’re volunteers and we don’t have to be here. _Go!”_

Jughead was up in a flash, throwing on some clothes and stuffing his bundle of belongings in his backpack. By the time Betty’s fifth contraction hit, he was heading out the door, hurrying to get to the admin office, which was open at all hours. 

He told them urgently that he had to get home, that his spouse was having a baby and that he had to be there for her when it happened. 

Jughead was unaccustomed with the joy his news was met. The Def Cor had been rigid and unsympathetic to any kind of non-tactical concerns. He had to be reminded that the goals of the vet division meant they looked out for the vet’s well being, and that milestones like having a baby were celebrated. 

“You need Clay Walker to fly you home,” said the dispatcher at the counter. He looked over his shoulder at the vets shuffling papers on the desks behind him. “Someone fetch Walker, ASAP. We got us a captain who needs to get home--the missus is having a baby!”

It was all chaos from there. The vets all came to him, offering him well wishes and cheers, and Jughead realized that this meant a lot to them, too, because almost all of them had survived trauma one way or another, almost all of them were in therapy--some more intensely than others, and to see one of them moving forward in their lives, it gave everyone who ever fought through their PTSD hope that someday, they could get to where he was, too.

When Clay arrived, a navigator accompanied him, and Jughead was rushed to a transport. They were preparing to warp through deep space in minutes, but before they did, Jughead was finally able to send out a message. 

“I’m heading home, Betty. I’ll be there for you soon.”

Her immediate response of, “Hurry,” had him nodding to Walker. “Let’s go.”

*************************

The ride took a few hours and when phased out of warp, he was able to communicate with FP, who told him he’d brought Betty to the Raphael. He sent Jughead the coordinates of the ship and Walker jubilantly offered to drop him off at the moving medical facility. 

Once his transport docked at ship bay, Jughead turned to thank them profusely for their expediency. Walker waved his words away. “Thank me later. Go!”

Jughead gave both their shoulders grateful pats before he rushed out and headed to the nearest information desk, asking about Elizabeth Cooper-Jones. 

She was in the maternity ward, having been in labor for several hours. 

Jughead walked into an unlikely scene, with Betty gripping FP’s hand as she paced back and forth and his father talking her through her contractions as she walked across the floor of her room. FP looked pale, but calm, and he was sweating, which almost made Jughead laugh, if he weren’t so concerned about the pain outlined on Betty’s face. 

It was FP who noticed him first. “Boy! Betty, Jughead’s here!”

She looked up, just as a sob broke out. “Juggie, oh, thank God! I wanted you to be here when I delivered.”

He had missed her, and the entire time First Lieutenant Walker was flying them, he was laser focused on his monitoring app, counting the contractions like a crazy person. He wrapped Betty in a tight embrace, pressing his lips atop her head. “I knew the contractions were getting more frequent. I didn’t wait--I just came over here.” He pulled away to look her in the eyes. “How are you doing? Anything I can do to help?”

Her watery smile broke his heart the slightest bit. “We’re okay. I just need you to be here--and maybe get me some crushed ice--”

“You stay here, Jug,” FP said in a harried tone. “I’ll get that for Betty.” He breathed a long sigh as he headed for the door. “Boy, sure glad you’re here…”

As soon as he was gone, Betty’s grip on his arms tightened and her face screwed in pain. “Contractions…”

The lessons from the breathing classes he took kicked in and he managed to talk Betty calmly through her contractions. That, out of everything, calmed him, and he felt many of his worries dissipate when he realized that everything they had done to prepare for this was actually working. 

FP, though mostly overwhelmed, was glad to be ordered around to do one thing or another. 

A nurse periodically came in to check on Betty, assessing the readings on the monitors that surrounded them. 

Two hours later, Dr. Takyi walked through the doors, grinning. “How are we doing, Betty?”

All Betty could do was nod through her breaths. Her contractions were five minutes apart and Jughead was feeling the inklings of panic. He was on the verge of telling the doctor that Betty was ready to deliver, but he bit his lip and let the doctor take over. 

Dr. Takyi asked them to lay her down on the bed, and with FP’s help, they eased her onto the mattress. When the doctor pulled out the stirrups, FP ran for the door. 

“Jesus, dad!” Jughead cried. He was already getting anxious with Betty’s labor, so now he was incredibly annoyed by his father’s inability to act like a grown up. 

Betty’s laughter amidst her contractions eased his irritation. “Leave him alone. He got this far--which is more than I expected.”

Dr. Takyi seemed amused as she settled Betty’s feet and legs on the stirrups. “Important thing is, _this_ dad’s here.”

The doctor calling _him_ dad struck him with an odd sense of calm and he watched Dr. Takyi examine Betty’s progress. 

“Oh, boy,” Dr. Takyi said. “You’re 7 centimeters… going on 8. Ready to be mommy and daddy?”

Betty gasped at a contraction, but she nodded, squeezing Jughead’s hand. “So ready. _God,_ can we get on with this? _Oh, my God!”_

She was in pain and Jughead looked at Dr. Takyi pleadingly. “Doctor--”

“Take it easy, dad. I got this. She’s doing beautifully, and she’s the perfect candidate for advanced biopulse delivery.” 

As she said this, a wave of nurses poured through the door, pushing in equipment and working like pit mechanics to attach everything to Betty’s body. 

Jughead had read up on all possible procedures for delivery. _Pushing_ was tried and true--traditional in every respect, but advances to medicine had been made to lessen the stress of delivery to both mother and child. Nonsurgical options were always best, so a c-section was still the last resort. Advanced biopulse delivery included all the benefits of vaginal delivery with minimal effort, perfectly timed muscle pulsing, and because of the anesthesia requirement, relatively painless. 

The doctor still needed to attend, radiologists still needed to monitor, and the anesthesiologist still needed to use a huge needle to give the anesthesia, but everything else was expected to be a calm and soothing affair. 

“Sit her up,” said the anesthesiologist, all business and stoic calm, putting on a glove as she said it. A nurse gently eased her way between Jughead and Betty.

“But--”

“Just for a few minutes, Mr. Jones,” the nurse said, sitting Betty up and leaning Betty’s forehead against her nurse’s chest. The nurse linked her fingers behind Betty’s neck to keep her stable as the anesthesiologist did her work. 

When the needle came out, Jughead felt incredibly light-headed at the thought that the thing was going to be impaled into Betty’s spine. He swayed.

He felt strong hands grip his arm. It was a nurse. 

“Have a seat, Mr. Jones,” said the nurse, grinning as he led Jughead to a nearby chair. He had a glass of water, as if prepared for this very situation. No doubt, many a partner had needed this same treatment. Jughead took the water appreciatively, gulping it down as the anesthesiologist worked on giving Betty the shot.

By the time he got his bearings, Betty was at ten centimeters and ready for delivery. He held her hand as the biopulse stimulated and regulated her muscles, timed perfectly with her contractions. 

Dr. Takyi told him to coach Betty with her breathing and he took on this task with the enthusiasm of being assigned a job in a situation where he would’ve been helpless. 

As Betty breathed, he could see that the pain had waned considerably from her body, and when she smiled up at him, in time with the cresting of waves on the monitor, his worry faded into a swelling happiness.

Dr. Takyi and the nurses assured them both that they were progressing beautifully.

Fifteen minutes into the procedure, Dr. Takyi announced that the baby was crowning, and in seconds, a shrill cry pierced the delivery room. 

Jughead could barely contain his emotions when a nurse gently laid their baby girl into Betty’s outreached arms. So new to the world and so small, there was still blood on her body, but Jughead loved her instantly, and it barely registered that he was being asked to cut the cord. He did so, enchanted the entire time by his daughter and Betty. 

He pressed a kiss to Betty’s lips and then one atop the baby’s head. Her cries had eased at the touch of her mother, sucking at her fingers as her barely opened eyes squinted against the glaring light. He could see that hint of blue, and her downy hair was dark as space. 

“Juliet,” Betty whispered, gently tugging a blanket around her tiny body. 

He touched his forehead to hers, the newness of her skin against the hardened lines of his filled him with unbearable love. “Juliet Cooper-Jones. Welcome to the universe.”

tbc


	4. Postpartum

Betty’s love for Juliet was overwhelming. She was a tiny bundle of happiness and she was mostly quiet, as of yet. She snuggled happily in her mother’s arms, her warm chest pressed against Betty’s body. She rooted from her mother’s breasts within the hour, and with the lactation coach giving gentle guidance, Betty learned things about her body that she never knew she needed knowing. 

It was still challenging, Betty realized. 

Babies were not expected to know how to properly latch, and they were so easily full. Betty learned that breasts needed training, too, which was cause for a bit of frustration. It was comforting, at least, that she was being provided everything she needed--a breast pump, breast care kit, breast milk storage containers, and a handy bag that carried all of it, along with a portable refrigeration compartment at the bottom of the bag.

When Juliet wasn’t in Betty’s arms, Jughead had her with him. 

While at the hospital with them, Jughead was dressed and sterilized like a nurse, which Betty thought incredibly endearing. As the “co-parenter”--a label assigned to him by the hospital, he had his own cot to sleep in so that he could stay in for as long as the family deemed necessary. 

Jughead said the cot was comfortable, but Betty thought he was just high from having his daughter in his arms all the time, because at night, she heard him shifting in the sheets. If he moved around that much, it couldn’t be _that_ comfortable. 

Nevertheless, Jughead was glowing. He looked at them both with an endearing sense of awe, absolutely attuned to Betty and Juliet’s needs. 

Jughead held Juliet like a consummate pro, burping and changing her when necessary, and keeping her company when Betty needed sleep.

Betty had never appreciated Jughead more, especially when she finally told Jughead to take a nap, promising him that she could manage Juliet by herself.

“Oh, I don’t need to sleep,” he said, with conviction. “How about we watch a movie together?” And he happily set their viewing monitor up. When the movie was playing, he settled into the nearby cot to watch. 

He was softly snoring within minutes of the opening credits.

“Your dad is so extra,” Betty giggled and whispered at Juliet, who was softly cooing and blinking sleepily up at her. 

Doctors and nurses came and went, monitoring both mother and child for everything and anything Betty might need.. 

FP and Jellybean were there almost every day, dressed in very clinical scrubs. They were required to sanitize themselves each time they arrived, and neither of them complained. To them, the small inconvenience of disrobing, sterilizing, and getting dressed like an “egg-head”, as FP called it, was worth being able to hold Juliet. 

FP held Juliet for only minutes at a time, since Juliet always seemed to need something and FP wasn’t quite there for that, because there were others there to handle it. 

Jellybean was the biggest surprise. 

Betty did not think Jellybean would love holding Juliet so much, but she insisted, multiple times, that she could take over Jughead’s cuddle duties, whenever he had to do something else. 

Betty suspected that Jellybean liked that Juliet, swaddled, couldn’t actually _touch_ her, but much like Hotdog, Jellybean got close enough to sniff the baby’s skin, and it was almost like Jellybean needed that scent to establish that trust, and while other people may find it weird that a grown woman needed to trust an infant, Betty knew Jellybean long enough to take this sort of thing in stride. 

Given the ease of Betty’s delivery, her body was healing properly and without complications. She was up and about her maternity suite a day after delivery. Her bleeding was slowing right on schedule and the hospital kept her for five days because that was the standard. It took another day for the doctors to sign on her hospital discharge papers. She was still officially healing, but the doctors felt confident that she would be more comfortable in her own home.

Coming home to the Wyrm was a great relief, and Betty hadn’t realized how exhausting the experience was until she laid her head on their bed and immediately dozed off.

*****************

Betty had no complaints. Juliet wasn’t a fussy baby, and while infants were a lot of work, the support of everyone on the ship helped preserve both Betty and Jughead’s mental health. 

Jellybean and Hotdog did not mind having Juliet with them at different parts of the day—that being especially handy when Betty or Jughead had to attend to their basic needs like showering, having a quick meal, cleaning, or running quick errands. It was doubly reassuring when it became clear that Jellybean had no qualms about handling breast milk from the refrigerator or even changing Juliet’s diapers. 

FP, on the other hand, was a squeamish caregiver, but he was an excellent worker. He quickly and efficiently volunteered to do the things that needed doing to run the ship and finish the job. He did the work Jughead couldn’t because he was a new parent, and when they needed something for the baby, FP would be the one to jet out and get it, regardless of whether he understood the difference between ethically-tested and resource-friendly. 

FP liked to rock Juliet to sleep or even burp her, but when she started to cry, his panic was palpable and Jughead had to decide whether his daughter’s mild distress was worth the entertainment of her grandfather’s overblown suffering. 

In due time, Betty’s friends and family came and went, visiting and meeting Juliet. 

Gladys and Alice arrived together, naturally, and they were both fierce in their beliefs on how to calm an infant down, how to burp her properly, how to train her to sleep, how to breastfeed her, and what could be done to stimulate her brain early on. 

Gladys, of course, never passed up a moment to tell them how FP sucked at all of these things, while markedly letting Alice get away with gems like, “If she cries, leave her in her crib and don’t look at her. She’ll quickly realize that if she’s bad, she’ll be denied affection.”

“Boy, that really explains a lot about me and my siblings,” Betty told Jughead and Jellybean aside, resolving to _not_ listen to her mother.

“Never too young to start those mind games, eh, Alice?” FP quipped. 

That their mothers hadn’t smothered FP with a pillow as he slept was a win, Betty thought.

Whether Gladys and Alice told anybody about their Friends with Benefits relationship was now entirely _their_ business. Betty suspected that FP had finally gotten told, but looking back on everything, FP probably knew it before any of them. 

In any case, Betty and Jughead were sort of happy for them, give or take the weirdness of the family dynamics. 

The parade of aunts and uncles was a steady stream: Chic and Polly, Veronica and Toni, Malachi and Shelly May, Sweet Pea and Fangs, Kevin and Joaquin, Harvey and Sabrina, Josie and Reggie—came bearing gifts, with loud hints about being the best Godparent ever.

“Christ,” Jughead had muttered at Betty as he watched Malachi making faces over Juliet’s bassinet. “Would we even dare name one?”

“We can hold a Bingo night. First one to Bingo wins,” Betty joked.

“And if Malachi wins?”

The thought made Betty laugh. “Then he wins!”

“Catch me letting that hoodlum Godparent _my_ daughter,” he grumbled, darkly. 

Betty almost wanted to give it to Malachi just to see what Jughead would do. It was bound to be entertaining. 

It took Betty all but three weeks home at the Wyrm before she walked back into the Engine room dressed in her overalls and a scarf to hold back her hair. 

Juliet dozed peacefully in her hovering bassinet, the steady thrum of the engine assuring that Betty would have at least an hour and a half before Juliet stirred for milk.

Betty sat at her chair, put her booted feet up on her work desk, and started scribbling computations in her fresh notebook. 

A little over an hour later, Jughead came in with a mug of tea, just as Juliet began to shift in her bassinet. He glanced quickly at Juliet before handing Betty the mug.

“Thank you, love.” Betty grasped the hot mug for warmth. The room was cold. “You’re the best.”

“Are you working? Four weeks after you popped out a baby?”

“I’m surprised it took this long, actually.” She sipped her tea, ever aware of Juliet moving in her swaddled sheets. “I should be good to bounty hunt in a couple more weeks.”

Jughead shot her a look.

“I’m kidding.” She glanced at Juliet, whose eyes had cracked open. “Daddy has lost his sense of humor.”

He tossed Betty a withering look before he went to Juliet and gently picked her up. “Daddy knows mommy is bored enough to do crazy things.”

The small coo that followed had Jughead grinning broadly. 

Betty, even seated, planted a hand on her hip. “I do not do crazy things when I’m bored. And how dare you imply that caring for our infant daughter is boring!” 

“I would never.” He tenderly touched the downy hairs on Juliet’s round head. “I’m sure Juliet is riveting at all times.”

She pursed her lips, going back to scribbling on her notebook, even as she drank her tea. “Most times,” she grumbled, knowing that he wasn’t talking out of his ass. He shared more than enough parental duties to know caring for an infant wasn’t always the transcendent experience of that first week. 

It was around the second week back from the hospital that the 24/7 childcare routine, with the irregular naps and constant breastfeeding, that her euphoria began to wane.

 _“How can I help?”_ he had asked her, tenderly, as she sobbed at the pain of it. _“Some heating pads? Maybe some healing cream? Or if you like, you can give me Juliet and you can use the breast pump for a bit. I think I can calm her down while she’s waiting for her lunch.”_

Betty thought that the most comforting thing about his offers for help was that he had looked it up. He didn’t tell her to take a break. He didn’t tell her to carry on. He didn’t tell her to do anything. He showed her, with his gently offered help, that he empathized, and that meant a lot to her. It was also proof that he was very much willing to carry his weight in childcare, something that, still, at this day and age, didn’t seem to be expected as much from men. 

When she first tried to show her appreciation for his being there for them, she had caught a whiff of offense. _“What are you thanking me for? She’s my daughter, too.”_

At first she felt ashamed for having been insensitive, but Jughead had circled back with her later and apologized. _“I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I just forgot--you carried her for 40 weeks, birthed her, and parts of your body are functioning expressly for her care right now. Of course the weight of responsibility felt heaviest on you. I was just--there was a lot going on behind what I said, Betts, and none of it was your fault.”_

She couldn’t possibly be mad at him. She never was, but she appreciated him giving his words a lot of thought, especially when all she could think about was how unfairly she had assumed that he would let other important things come before childcare just because she was there for Juliet. 

_“I didn’t want to be my dad,”_ he had explained. _“You know, when he was a deadbeat drunk who wasn’t around to help mom. I know it sounds terrible to say that about him, especially now that I know he’s going to be a great granddad, but it stayed with me, those shitty years seeing us struggle because he wasn’t there, and all I can think of is how I don’t ever want to be_ that _dad.”_

He would never be _that_ dad. She knew because she knew _him_ . The way he cared for Juliet was inspiring almost to her. He never lost patience. Never lost his cool. He woke up in the middle of the night as much as she did, even more, because there have been times he would tell her, _“Shhh, I’m awake anyway. Go back to sleep,”_ when it should’ve been her turn.

And she knew he had things to take care of outside of Juliet, though FP has helped enormously on that front, particularly in the day-to-day requirements of the ship. 

Jughead had finally put out an ad for a pilot, too, and it was probably stressing him out more than raising Juliet was. 

So all of this was going on, and Betty could only think that she was ready to pull her weight on the ship, because having nothing but childcare to wake up to was beginning to seem like an endless wormhole to nowhere. 

“I just need to feel like myself again,” Betty explained, taking her crown hat of magnifying glasses and putting it on her head. “And I figured there’s this handy-dandy hovering bassinet to keep Juliet near me at all times.”

Jughead nodded, casting her a sympathetic look. “Want me to take Juliet to the bridge after you feed her?”

Betty could see that Juliet was already restless. In a couple of minutes, she would be crying. She put her arms out for the baby and Jughead laid her carefully in Betty’s arms to be breastfed. 

When Juliet was properly latched, Betty looked up at Jughead and sighed. “I’m not supposed to get tired of this mothering thing. Is there some kind of gestalt that mothers are supposed to draw their postpartum glow from? All those moms on baby products and hospital reading material look so happy...”

Jughead held out his hand and she took it. It was then Betty realized that she had actually gotten good enough at this breastfeeding thing that she could comfortably do it one-armed and with a crown of magnifying glasses on her head. 

“It’s just Salad Lady, mothering,” he said. “You know this.”

She nodded. The Salad Lady encompassed all those random stock photos of women happy to be eating a bowl of vegetables, _without_ dressing. It was their code for anything media portrayed as disproportionately enjoyable compared to the actual experience. Exercise Lady was just Salad Lady, exercising, just like Maternity Lady was just Salad Lady, pregnant. They were all the Salad Lady. 

“You look amazing, by the way,” he said. “Just like this. I really want to take a picture of you breastfeeding Juliet just like this. Seriously. I’ll post it on Instantgram.” 

This was incredible. “You have an Instantgram?”

“Juliet has an Instantgram--set to friends and family, of course. Mom set up her own account just for it.”

“Ah.” This was epically hilarious and adorable, but she didn’t want Jughead to think she was shaming him, because she wanted him to be this silly about his daughter. She wanted him to be unashamedly a marshmallow dad. “You know, if you post a picture of me just like this, I might be a Salad Lady to someone else.”

Jughead was already lining up the camera on his device. “Impossible. You are totally real and relatable. Don’t smile.” The digital click was audible. “So can I? Post a photo of you?”

“Why not?”

Not a few seconds later, the telltale swooping sound of a post punctuated his typing. He projected the post and Betty saw herself with her feet up on her work desk, breastfeeding a baby while looking every bit the mechanic she was. The image was nicely angled to show the warp core in the background. 

_Mama in her natural habitat._

She arched an eyebrow. 

“It was either that or ‘Mama’s a snacc’, which I don’t think is a Juliet post. That would have so obviously been a dad post and I’m not ready to break the third wall quite yet.”

She crooked her finger for him to come closer. When he did, she grabbed the material of his black henley and pulled him down to plant a kiss on his lips. “You haven’t gotten any in weeks, have you?”

“I mean, _you_ would know.”

“Well, yes. And the doctor did say I needed 6 weeks to recover.”

“It’s only been four weeks, three days, eight and a half hours, give or take.”

“Oh, boy. You’ve been keeping track.”

He closed his eyes with martyr-like forbearance, his hands folded in prayer. “The struggle is very. Real.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. _“Aw.”_

“I’m kidding,” he gasped, wide-eyed. “I can’t believe you thought I was serious! I realize that sometimes I act like an animal--” 

She made a _rawr-ing_ sound, which made him wag a warning finger at her, exactly the way FP did it when he was chastising either Gladys or Alice, causing Betty to throw back her head and laugh so loud that Juliet gave a mild coo of complaint.

“That’s not _all_ I think about, you know,” he continued. “Give me some credit, Mrs. Jones. I am a fully formed, mature adulting parent.”

“I can give you a blowjob later. Blindfolded. I think it’ll be totally fine.”

 _“Yes, please.”_ He seemed perfectly serious as he said this, but his body language suggested that he was not here to be seduced. “But I’m gonna put on my Big Boy hat and say it’s no fun for me if I can’t please you back. Your doctor also said that your entire body is healing, so that means _all_ of your body needs time.” 

A pout plumped her lips. “Well, I get to have a say on what I do with my body.”

His hands splayed out in total surrender. “Of course! But your body wants to do things with _my_ body.”

She paused to think. _Oh._ “I guess. What’s your body telling you?”

Jughead scoffed. “Oh, my body’s all about your body right now, believe me.”

She laughed. “This big ass and puffy belly?”

He smiled and made a humming sound, nodding as he dropped to his knees beside her. He caressed the extra bulge along her thighs and the thickness around her waist. “I love it. You know that. It makes my heart feel bigger.”

It was times like these that she wanted to take him into her, envelope him in her warmth and keep him there forever. She was still mostly wearing her maternity clothes, and she imagined that sooner or later, she would crave harder exercise to squeeze out those endorphins that helped her manage her anxiety, but for now she was thankful the hormones hadn’t pushed her to depression, and that a healthy diet and childcare was helping her mental health stay afloat, and that meant light exercise and her pregnancy pooch. 

Jughead never hesitated to tell her how he loved her this way and she appreciated his love. 

She kissed his upturned lips. “I want to reward you.”

“In two weeks we’ll reward each other. In the meantime I’ll take care of you. And Juliet. _Mustn’t_ forget the baby.”

She laughed and flicked some of his hair off his forehead. 

Pressed against her breast, Juliet cooed, nestled and happy in the midst of her parents’ love.

******************

Betty’s palms were sweaty.

Version 2 of her fully repaired and improved 42 Engine sat silent in the test room. The gigantic monitor was split into 6 screens, allowing a view of the engine from four angles. 

They were in a different testing facility, further out in space, but the basic requirements were the same. The engine would be in a room half a mile away, the observation deck provided remote control equipment, safety procedures and measures were available, and multimedia digital recorders could be accessed and activated. 

It took Betty two days to configure the entire testing lab to her specifications, with some technical help from Jellybean and a lot of parental and logistical support from Jughead. FP helped with many of the childcare, as well. At five months, FP had decided that Juliet was sturdy enough to withstand his self-proclaimed awkwardness, at least long enough until FP could fetch help for things he didn’t know what to do about.

In spite of all the help, there were still things that only Betty could do, like breastfeed, or pumping her breast milk into bottles, or be _mom_ during those inexplicable crying jags where Juliet wanted no one but her. 

Juliet’s easy demeanor during her first six weeks had apparently been a holding period. She was feeling out her new world, but it seemed that she’d figured things out and was now completely aware about how she affected it. Juliet now had moods.

She liked her aunt and grandfather just fine, letting them care for her when her mom and dad were too busy to attend to her. She could sit quietly with Jellybean for an hour, so long as she could watch Hotdog chase his own tail or fetch his ball, and she still took many, many naps, but when she was fully rested and ready to party, she was a tiny princess who knew what she wanted. 

There were times when she would be soothed by Betty and only Betty, sometimes only Jughead can calm her down. At first, her parents worried it was something physical, but after a thorough examination from the pediatrician, running the full gamut on testing, the pediatrician concluded that it was, as she suspected, behavioral. 

“When she misses either mom or dad, she cries for you. How else is she gonna say it? She can’t speak. You can _train_ her to self-soothe. That would give you a reprieve. Here’s some material you can look to…”

That was four weeks ago and neither of them could muster the will to let Juliet cry in her bassinet by herself.

The infant papoose was either slung around Jughead or Betty, keeping Juliet close to their chests as they did various tasks.

Occasionally, Juliet got soothed by Hotdog, who was quick to snuffle his nose into the bassinet when Juliet began to cry. When she was in the mood for Hotdog, the effect was instant. She would go from miserable to delighted in seconds, and Hotdog’s tail would wag so powerfully that it would knock things over with frightening force. 

But as Betty stared at the latest version of her engine, with Juliet miles away, with only Grandpa FP and Hotdog to keep her company, Betty’s apprehension for her engine was rivaled by her apprehension of being so far away from her baby when neither of her parents, nor her resourceful aunt, were within five minutes of her.

“Dad’s gonna be fine with Juliet, right?” Betty asked, biting her lip. 

“Well, he hasn’t commed yet,” Jellybean replied as she tapped on her keyboard. “And Hotdog’s there. He’ll make sure the bug’s okay.”

Betty wasn’t sure she could be soothed by the fact that Jellybean trusted the family dog more than she trusted her own father. 

Jughead, chewing one end of a Twizzler as part of an effort to quit smoking, grumbled, “It’s fine. I told him to text me a photo of Juliet every thirty minutes. I told him fifteen but he took offense at that.”

Betty supposed they had to try to give FP some credit. 

“We wouldn’t be so worried if we asked ma to babysit,” Jellybean said. 

“She had plans,” Betty pointed out.

“Yeah, with _your mom._ This is why grandmothers shouldn’t date each other,” Jellybean ground out through her teeth.

Jughead sighed but said nothing, exchanging exasperated looks with Betty. Betty’s philosophy on the matter was that so long as both mothers were happy, it gave them less reason to stir trouble with the rest of them. 

Betty put her hands up and gestured to the screen. “We need to focus. The sooner we can get this test over with, the sooner we can get back to the Wyrm. Agreed?”

Jughead and Jellybean grumbled their agreement. 

Betty had made improvements in the process and both her “staff” were better practiced than they were the first time and Jellybean had developed faster, better diagnostic programs since they first did the test. 

If all went well, it was Jughead’s role to stress test. He was the pilot and he knew how to put an engine through its basic paces, building up the levels to intermediate, and then to expert. 

Betty tried to keep her expectations to “basic”. This was just their second test, and her first failure, as well as parenthood, had given her a healthier perspective on the matter of goal-setting. 

She started the procedures and Jellybean followed in lock-step, building up to engine ignition. 

Betty counted it down and clicked on EXECUTE. 

The engine ignited, pulsing as expected and kept pulsing as the gears worked and the data began pouring into their dashboards. 

Betty did not want to get excited, but a minute into the test and having everything _still_ going as expected was pushing her adrenaline levels to buzzing. 

Jellybean and Jughead did not have the same restraint. They were tapping each other’s shoulders and muttering that it was working in increasingly excited voices. 

“We’re only going on two minutes, kids,” Betty said in an even tone. 

Jughead ignored her. “It’s working, babe. The engine is working!”

Betty could not help but agree as she entered codes and turned dials. “I know. I _know._ But we have to keep going.”

Jellybean laughed, echoing Jughead’s cheers. As the engine continued on, humming beautifully as the minutes ticked by, Jughead hooked up to the simulator and started using the engine the way it was expected to be used in a spacecraft, running it through basic routines the first twenty minutes. 

In the meantime, Betty was furiously taking notes and Jellybean was gathering data, making adjustments where necessary. 

As Jughead moved up to intermediate, the engine started to show signs of stress, but it powered through the intermediate maneuvers. When Jughead leveled up to expert, the first warning signs began to flash on their dashboards. 

At this point, they powered the engine down, moving on to rescue procedures that were as critical to the use of the engine as one that was working up to standards. 

As they decelerated the engine to off, smoke began to waft off the engine’s body, but it did not turn into a fire, and as they stared at the smoking but perfectly whole engine, Betty gave a scream of triumph. She was joined by Jellybean and Jughead. 

Betty felt herself lifted from the ground, spinning in Jughead’s arms. She laughed and planted a kiss on his lips that had Jellybean pleading for them to stop. 

As the initial rush of their joy settled to a steady hum, Betty went back to work. 

“We still have some kinks to work out for the intermediate,” she said, her fingers flying over the dashboard. “And I absolutely did not optimize the engine for expert, so that’s a few months down, but the engine works. The model works. It can fly a small ship. It can fly a _fast_ ship.”

“Betty,” Jellybean gasped, laughing. “You’ve done it. You’ve _done it.”_

 _“We’ve_ done it,” Betty said, with emphasis and a wide, toothy grin.

She felt Jughead’s arm drape over her shoulders, accompanied by a gentle squeeze. “We’re proud of you, Betty. Always have been, but now more than ever. And you’re just getting started.”

She took a moment to look at him and take in the magnitude of his words, of how much it took to get to this point and for how long. The feelings of accomplishment were tremendous. This engine took an entire year to build and several more months to improve on it, test it, fix it, and test it again. A lot of work and collaboration had gone into this engine and it felt enormously satisfying to finally get it to work. 

But this wasn’t just about the engine, this was about their entire journey. Things had to be right with everything for the engine to work. This engine could only be completed because life was on-course, and they had literally shed blood, sweat, and tears to get here.

“I couldn’t have done it without either of you. You both know that, right?” she said. “When I write my paper and publish, you and Jellybean could potentially be in the byline with me--at the very least, you’re sure to be cited as primary participants.”

“How do I get in the byline, exactly?” Jellybean asked. 

Betty laughed. “You’ll have to write the paper with me.”

Jellybean made a face. “Ugh. Primary participant it is.”

Jughead ruffled her hair and Jellybean shoved his hand off with a loud complaint, but Jughead was completely unbothered by the slight. “I don’t know, sis. I think we should try our hand at it. This could change the universe.”

Betty had to concede that he wasn’t exaggerating. This engine had enormous potential, and she already had every intention of pitching the engine to Polly. It was just the kind of engine the company needed to turn their reputation around--an affordable, environmentally efficient engine, assembled and distributed by a top-of-the-line spacecraft manufacturer--to build anew over the shame of Hal Cooper’s ugly legacy, and unlike Hal, Polly would treat this engine with respect, making it available to the ones who need it most in the far reaches of each quadrant. 

The future, from where she stood now, was incredibly bright. 

*********************

There was nothing Jughead wouldn’t do for Betty and Juliet. From the simplest request to turn the ship just right so Juliet could watch the swirling bright nebula from its starboard side, to flying 7 days through a wormhole so that they could all be at the twins’ first birthday (and spend a few days in New York). Jughead knew he could do more than that. Much more. If Betty could scour the universe to find his sorry ass in some far flung slave camp, infiltrate a heavily guarded illegal mining operation, and extract him from its hellhole, then he could pretty much fly into the sun to catch a candle flame for her.

And not only was Juliet both his greatest strength and weakness, and Betty the pillar upon which his entire universe held steady and strong, they were both of them brilliant. With Juliet, so young, yet so capable of making him do what she wanted and Betty, a scientist on the brink of changing the way beings thrived in the four quadrants, they were both an inspiration to him. 

There was absolutely no limit to what his beloved wife and daughter could make him do.

 _So why,_ he thought, _oh why have I dawdled on hiring someone else to pilot this ship?_

He had one job--to be its captain. To lead a crew and successfully run jobs across the Wild Quest. 

It wasn’t just the pilot, either. With profitable business rolling back in with bounties and the prospect of delivering large quantities of 42 Engines into the deep reaches of the fourth quadrant, courtesy of Cooper Gestalt’s plans to beta launch their _Emergent Industry_ line of engines, they were going to need at least one more extra gun. 

Jughead had been rifling through several applications, and the truth was, he had zeroed in on the two he may accept for the job: Joaquin deSantos and Harvey Kinkle. 

Joaquin was a great pilot. He piloted the Wyrm on the rescue mission to Kestra Prime and Harvey, while relatively new to bounty hunting, had gotten a lot of great experience working for Malachi. 

They were both veterans, too, and he trusted both, knew them to be good men, and they had sent him applications without his prompting. 

When Jughead expressed his apprehension to FP, FP had simply laughed and told him, “You gotta let go, boy. You can’t do the job of three people. And you have Juliet now. You gotta think about what kind of father you wanna be for your kid. Joaquin and Harvey will be a great help in balancing the quality of your life.”

“Malachi will skin me alive for recruiting Harvey.”

“I thought you liked pissing him off.”

He supposed his father was right. 

It was hilarious how Malachi’s feelings suddenly mattered. Perhaps it was that in spite of Malachi’s dependably irritating personality, he was the first bounty hunter Jughead would comm for any support related to bounty hunting and jumping. This was further enforced by the fact that while Polly was Juliet’s official godmother, Malachi had--in similar Veronica fashion--called himself Juliet’s godfather whether her parents wanted him to or not. 

“What if Juliet were in trouble all the way out here in the 3rd and 4th quadrant? You gonna expect Queen Polly and Princess Veronica to jet over here and rescue her?” Malachi had asked.

Jughead would’ve bet his life they would, honestly, but in a situation like that, he had to admit that expediency was key, and wormholes could only bend time and space so much. If Juliet were in distress and by some disaster no one else on the Whyte Wyrm survived, Malachi would be first on the scene. 

That said, Jughead would fly himself into a black hole before he admits he would trust Malachai was his daughter’s life. 

So, after weeks of putting it off, he finally sent off his offer messages to both Joaquin and Harvey, the weight of his anxiety blowing through his heavy sigh. 

He buried his face in his hands and moaned. “Fuck it.”

“I’m proud of you Captain Jones.” 

He sat up from his captain’s chair at the sound of Betty’s voice. Juliet’s squeal followed, arms outstretched towards him. At seven months, she had learned to sit up by herself, so they carried her around upright, her body learning all sorts of maneuvers as her elders held her in their arms. 

Jughead smiled, hands open to receive her, and as Betty deposited Juliet into his arms, she looked at the monitor where Joaquin and Harvey’s files were laid out side by side. 

“They’re good men, Jughead. They’re going to be great, and given enough time, they’ll feel like family, too.”

He nodded, some of his apprehension easing. “They respect me and they respect _you._ We were both their commanding officers.”

The tilt of her head implied that she hadn’t thought about that. “Oh, yeah. They _did_ take orders from me for a spell. That just makes them even more ideal.”

“I’m sure there will be a period of adjustment,” Jughead said as Juliet grabbed at his hair and pulled. “One way or another. They’re going to have to get used to us, too.”

She nodded. “It should be interesting, but nothing we can’t handle.”

On the one hand, it was easy to believe that after all they’ve been through, this, comparatively, was a cake walk, but that was the thing with human beings and how they interacted with the universe--they could offer up infinite possibilities if they really wanted to. 

Fortunately for him, Betty and the rest of his family were just amazing enough to steer those possibilities to a more favorable direction. 

He cast Betty a smile and bounced Juliet in his hands. “That’s right. It’s nothing we can’t handle.”

_**fin** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, how I love this series, and I'll come back to it some time in the future. Don't know yet when that will be, but if I get the notion, you guys will be the first to know. 
> 
> I know this might very well come at the end of the Riverdale fandom as we know it, but Bughead will live on for us. I've said it once and I'll say it again--this is what fanfic is for.


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